They Call Me Ruthless
by Kreidian
Summary: Just because you're Ruthless doesn't mean you don't care. Stories of a Renegade Shepard that doesn't fall into your typical uncaring killer stereotype. Earthborn Infiltrator FemShep. A work in progress, Please Review!
1. Torfan

_**Torfan**_

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* * *

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The solitary moon of Torfan was far from an idealistic place to visit. But it was remote and easily overlooked which made it an ideal stomping ground for pirates, slavers, and all manner of space faring criminal in the Traverse. The local Batarian contingent had over time managed to build an impressive Fort on the barren moon. Miles beneath the hard rock surface, it could stand up to a full fledged assault. And that is precisely what it was facing now.

The Alliance fleet had arrived in retaliation for an attack on the Elysium colony. The glory of their successful defense of that settlement only served as a stark contrast to the dreaded failure looming over their current engagement. Being underground, the design of the Torfan stronghold made it so attacking from an orbiting fleet would be little more than a waste of firepower. Short of shattering the entire moon, there was no way to breach the defenses from orbit. That meant any assault had to take place on the ground. But of course the Batarians were expecting that.

"Damn these Batarians!" Major Kyle swore, he had been placed in command of all the ground forces in Torfan, and so far all he could do at this point was get his men killed. As a result he was growing more and more frustrated, the toll of dead soldiers was beginning to weigh heavily on him. "They are far too entrenched, their defenses are too strong. Every unit we've sent in gets slaughtered."

"There must be another way." One of his officers tried suggesting, Kyle didn't even bother to look up to see who it was.

"There is no other way!" The Major yelled, "Unless you want to spend years drilling into solid metal heavy rock cliffs, the only way into that fort is on foot. It was intentionally designed so you could only reach it with a ground team. But they turned the only entrance into a massive killzone, anyone we send in there will just get ripped apart." Deafening silence descended on the entire command room after the Major's outburst. There was nothing anyone could say that would make Major Kyle's words any less true.

"I'll do it sir." A female voice shot through the room with such strength and confidence, Kyle had to wonder if he had heard it at all.

"Lieutenant Shepard." Major Kyle said as he looked over at the source of the voice. "I know you haven't had much experience with command but even you can't be that foolish. Do you really want to throw your men onto the sacrificial alter like that?" Lieutenant Shepard was dressed in standard Alliance issue light combat armor. Despite being at full combat ready the only weapons she carried with her was a large sniper rifle on her back and her sidearm. She was taller then the Major had expected, and her raven black hair made her brilliant blue eyes seemed to stand out even more then normal, making her gaze that much more piercing.

"No sir." Came Shepard's quick military response, "But like you said, sir. This is the only way. We need a ground team to assault the base, and I think me and my men can do it, sir."

"Then tell me." Major Kyle said in a measured tone, "What makes you think you'll succeed where everyone else has thus far failed miserably? Go on, tell me how you plan to do the impossible?"

With a simple nod Lieutenant Shepard walked forward standing right across from Major Kyle with only a map display of the engagement area between them. Looking down at the map, Shepard only studied it for a moment before placing an armored finger down on an icon that represented one of the ancillary turret nests on the far west side of the complex.

"There" She explained, "We come in from the side. They should have tunnels connecting this point to their main base, otherwise they wouldn't be able to maintain their killzone. If we can push through hard enough we should be able to make it all the way inside."

"No, I don't like it." Major Kyle said, "It's too risky."

"With all due respect sir." Lieutenant Shepard shot back, "Of course it's risky, but we have no choice, we're not going to be able to take that fort by playing it safe."

Major Kyle considered the upstart Lieutenant for a moment before finally giving her a frustrated sigh, "Fine, if you want to go get you and your unit killed, I'll give you the go ahead." Vaguely remembering the mission orders that brought them here Major Kyle then added, "If you do manage to breach the Batarian defenses feel free to kill them all. But at this point I'll be shocked if you even make it out alive."

* * *

Lieutenant Sara Shepard, if she were to be completely honest with herself, was still not used to being in a command position. It was like she joked with her friends back in the Academy, the only real problem with getting a promotion in the military is that they actually expect you to make use of it. Even now the biggest concern that filled her mind was not if she would be able to pull off what she promised, but that the men and women she had been put in charge of would be willing to follow her on what was for all practical purposes a suicidal plan.

She had sent word to her unit to gather for a mission briefing in ten minutes so she could address them all. She would have made it five but she wanted the extra time to consider what she would have to say to her men. As she thought about it she decided to hit up the Alliance database so she could learn more about her enemy this day.

She would have to be honest with them, Shepard thought to herself. Not only did they deserve as much but Shepard was the sort of soldier that preferred to be brutally honest whenever possible. It was part of what made her such an effective officer thus far, even if it rarely made her any friends. But at least anyone who ever served with her knew they could always trust her, and that, Sara felt, was more important in the long run.

The minutes flew by faster then she would have liked. Soon she was standing before her assembled unit who were waiting for her to say something. She took a deep breath then took a good look around the room at every single person in her unit. When she finally spoke she did so with unwavering confidence and determination. She believed wholeheartedly they could beat this mission, and she had to make sure her men knew it.

"Listen up everyone! We have our orders. We get the privilege of assaulting the main Batarian fort; we're going straight into the maw of hell. Our plan is simple. We go in tight, we go in hard, and we punch through their defenses."

"I'm not going to lie to you, I'm not going to stand here and say we're going to win. The truth is we may all die this day, chances are most of us won't be coming back. So I understand if you're afraid, I don't blame you. If you you're not ready to risk your life for this mission then request a reassignment and I'll approve it, no questions asked. No hard feelings here, there's nothing wrong with being human after all."

"But before any of you decide to leave I want to share with you what we're fighting for. You all know, officially we're here in retaliation for the attack on Elysium. But that's just the last straw. Fact is these Batarians and their allies have no qualms about attacking every human planet they come accross, they keep pushing and now we get to push back. This assault has been a long time coming for these bastards."

"Eight years ago there was a beautiful thriving human colony on Mindoir. I say 'was' because eight years ago the colony on Mindoir was destroyed. Attacked by Batarian slavers, many of whom are on this rock today, laughing at us from behind their fortified walls. The Batarians killed thousands of people, entire families. Everyone but the children. They let the children live only so they could cram subjugation implants into their heads and turn them into slaves. The only survivors of Mindoir were forced to suffer a fate worse then death. You see those pens we've recovered outside? That's where Batarians like to keep their slaves when they're not using them. Make no mistake, they treat their varren dogs far better then any human they've ever captured."

"If you don't believe me you can ask the soldiers who went to Mindoir as part of the rescue operation. Ask them about what they saw as the Batarians held them back, unable to do anything but watch the slavers torture and kill the very people they had come to protect. But I suggest you take my word for it, many of those soldiers where never the same after that mission."

"Yes, this is likely a suicide mission. But I will do everything I can to bring you all back home when this is over. However we can't lose sight of the bigger picture here. We have to make these slaver assholes regret ever setting foot in a human colony. We need to let the entire galaxy know that you can't just step on us, or else pretty soon we'll step back, hard. I have no intention of seeing any of you die today, but I took an oath when I joined the Alliance forces to do anything I had to do to protect humanity from those who would seek to destroy us. Every single soldier in here took the same oath, and I swear to you all I will accomplish this mission no matter the cost."

Shepard let her words hang in the air for a moment. She quickly realized there was nothing more to say about this mission, further words would only belabor the point, and these soldiers had enough on their mind as it was.

"Take your time, think this over." Shepard said finally, "Like I said, I understand if you want to leave, there's nothing wrong with being human. And at the end of the day that's exactly what we're fighting for here." After a brief pause she added, "Those of you who are staying get battle ready and meet outside for deployment in twenty. Dismissed."

Moments later Shepard found herself in her tent preparing her gear for the coming battle. Forefront on her mind was not the hard fight ahead, but the inevitable wave of transfer requests she was expecting. Most of the men and women who served under her were still quite young, none of them had ever faced such a deadly mission. With death looming so close she was certain many of them would choose to back down.

"Pardon me, ma'am?" Service Chief Ethan Masson, the second in command of her unit, appeared at the entrance of Shepard's tent with a datapad in hand. He was handsome soldier, the sort that looked like he had just walked off one of the Alliance's cheery recruitment vids, and he had the charisma to match. But he was second in command for a reason. Shepard had quickly recognized his skill in battle, even if his style was more about brute force compared to Shepard's own surgical strike preference.

"Yes Chief, what is it?" Shepard said as she motioned for her second to enter the tent.

"I went ahead and gathered all the reassignment requests I could find from the rest of the squad, figured you'd want to deal with this as soon as possible."

Shepard let out a sigh, she had been expecting this, "Very well, let's get it over with. How many did we lose?"

Chief Masson handed the Lieutenant the Data pad which she quickly began to read with a stoic determination. Shepard's expression soon began to change as the subtle and not so subtle hints of surprise and confusion began to play across her face.

"Johnson? He was already reassigned weeks ago to be with his wife and newborn," Shepard gazed critically at the Chief, "Why are you bringing me a month old request?"

"Well like I said," Ethan said with a cocky smile curving up his lip, "I brought you all the reassignment requests I could find, and from the entire unit that was the only one I found."

"You mean..." Shepard quietly considered the fact that there were no transfer requests coming, not from her entire unit.

"It's like you said, ma'am," the Chief continued, "We all swore an oath to protect humanity from the bad guys, and this is about as bad as we've ever seen. The men knew the risks when they signed up, none of them plan to shy away from that now."

"Chief, if it wasn't against regulations I'd kiss you right now." Sara smiled mischievously.

"Well damn, if I had known that I would have put in my own request." Ethan shot back with a smile of his own.

* * *

This is hell. Ethan was still trying to work out precisely which level of hell this was, but there was no denying this was brutal hell. Even trying to come into the target on flank, the whole unit was forced to go through a killzone. Shepard, to her credit, kept the whole unit moving forward. Determined and methodically, she had the whole unit running from one cover zone to another, moving closer to the target every time while avoid as much return fire as possible. But it was impossible to remain completely safe, already he'd seen two good marines die just getting to this point.

They were just a stone's throw away from their target turret nest, with little more then a mound of moon rock between them and the pirates shooting at them. By now it seemed every single criminal bastard in the entire complex was shooting at their unit. Word must have gotten around their base of the encroaching Alliance troops, and once the Batarians realized how close they were every single fortified gun was shooting at them.

One of their fellow soldiers - Private Lori, Ethan recalled - got up to one knee, firing feverishly from her assault rifle. Her shots scored big as Ethan noticed a couple of the red dots on his HUD disappear. The victory was all too short lived as a hail of return fire shredded her armor and most of her torso behind it. Her dead body fell back amongst the rest of their unit.

"Oh my god we're gonna die!" Another Private just inches from where Lori's body fell began to cry out hysterically. His confidence shattered the private began to shuffle backwards unknowingly into harm's way, Ethan knew the Private was lost to be just another casualty if he didn't get a grip, and soon.

"The Hell we are!" Shepard yelled back, despite all of the mass accelerated bullets raining down on their position, the strength of the Lieutenant's voice cut through the din of battle so everyone in the unit could hear her. To everyone's surprise, especially that shaken Private, Shepard grabbed him and yanked him to the ground behind cover. As she pinned him down she continued to yell at the private, with her entire squad was listening. "The only way you're going to die is if you keep telling yourself that soldier. We're still alive and the only way these Batarians fucks are gonna beat us is if we let them!"

"Yes ma'am." The private blinked, his voice still shaken, if it had not been for the default response drilled into him everyday since boot camp, Ethan knew he would be speechless right now.

"If you truly believe you're gonna die then stay here and get yourself killed." Shepard continued to yell, the private still locked in her deadly grip. "I don't believe that, and I WON'T believe that until they put a bullet in my head! Are we clear private!"

"Ma'am! Yes ma'am!" the private yelled back. A trained military response to be sure, but Ethan could tell the private was at least starting to regain his composure under fire. He might just live past this hell, Ethan thought to himself, though he considered that unlikely.

Shepard let go of the Private and unexpectedly moved to Private Lori's dead body. Ethan could see her looking into the dead marines eyes for a moment before she moved her hand to close them. She then reached down and grabbed Private Lori's handgun. Though it was much softer then her usual battlefield command voice, Masson could still hear Lieutenant Shepard speaking to the dead private, "I promise you I'll make good use of this."

"Masson, Richard!" Shepard's sudden use of her battlefield yelling voice momentarily shocked Ethan, but like a good soldier he instinctively focused on Shepard who was now pointing at the turret nest with her newly requisitioned gun, "Suppressive fire, now!"

"Aye aye, ma'am" Without hesitation Masson leaned over the cover just enough to get a line on the turret nest. He barely had the target in his sights when he started firing furiously, pausing briefly only as needed to prevent his assault rifle from over heating. Next to him he could hear Corporal Richard doing the same.

He wasn't sure what Shepard's plan was by that point, but the last thing he expected to see was the Lieutenant jumping out into the open and running as fast as possible straight at the turret nest. As she fired her pistol up towards the nest with one hand, she lobbed a number of grenades with the other, both tactical and regular explosive. The grenades sailed smoothly over the lip of the emplacement followed moments later by a series of satisfying explosions.

Shepard wasn't done, as soon as she was close enough she jumped up grabbing the edge of the nest wall with her free hand she vaulted herself over and into the nest, firing her pistol in midair. From his viewpoint Ethan could just make out what happened as he saw Shepard kicking one of the remaining pirates to the ground as she landed. She quickly moved to her feet, pulling out her other pistol and using both weapons to kill anything that moved.

From the cover of the turret nest she looked back at where she had left her unit and yelled back at them, "What are you boys waiting for, scented invitations? Move forward, now!"

"Let go!" Ethan cried out as he ran forward, "Death and Glory time."

Like clockwork motion hard learned from their boot camp obstacle courses, the entire unit of marines quickly made their way into the turret nest and down the tunnel behind it, which as Shepard had concluded, led them deep into the heart of the pirate complex.

* * *

The Bataraian paced furiously around the large room that served as the control center for the entire complex. At first glance any non-batarian would have assumed he looked like any other Batarian, but he had the tell tale golden pigments on his skull that cemented his position as their leader to all other Batarians. The non-batarian criminals he worked with were quickly convinced of his position of authority, often at the end of a gun. Everyone knew was a military man, his presence here was the result of covert placement by the Batarian government to help lead their cold war against the humans.

At this point he was not happy. Like the good commander that he was he had demanded regular status updates at the first sign of trouble. Lately those reports had been troubling indeed, and more to the point, dwindling rapidly.

"What the hell is going on out there?" He yelled, "This place is designed to be impenetrable, we have all the advantages, why are we losing so many men? Someone start talking!"

"It's the humans," Another Batarian spoke up, his race was all the complex leader respected about this man, beyond that he was nothing more then some petty criminal, and a rather spineless one at that, "They sent some elite squad of soldiers in or something. They got past our defenses and have been killing everything they run into."

"Are you kidding me?" The Batarian leader continued to bellow, "One squad? One squad of soldiers got this far? We have an entire Batarian army in here and we can't kill off one stupid squad."

"We've been killing them!" Another pirate, this one a Turian, tried to explain, "We must have killed half the squad by now, but the survivors just keep coming, they're not stopping. Every time we try to finish them off they get the jump on us. They've been able to anticipate everything we've thrown at them."

"No I refuse to believe this, we're talking about humans here." The Batarian leader continued his rant, "Stupid pale skinned, weak little humans. And no matter what it takes, we will kill them. We will gather every available body we can find and get rid of this problem once and for all." As a military man he expected action for his subordinates, what he got instead was a number of terrified stares and a reluctant silence that told him these criminals had something else in mind. When no one offered to say what they were all thinking he yelled out, "What is it?!"

"They've already killed everything we've thrown at them," That cowardly Batarian finally spoke up, "At the rate they're going we're all going to be dead before the last one of them drops. Even if we manage to kill them, they broke our defenses and there's an entire Alliance fleet waiting for us outside. I say we cut our losses and surrender."

"No! never!" The thought of surrendering Torfan made the Batarian leader completely irate, "I'm not about to surrender our strongest foothold, our best stronghold, over to these pathetic humans. I'm not even going to consider the notion I don't care how good a reason you can come up with!"

Almost in response to his words, the Batarian's head suddenly exploded as a large caliber hyper mass accelerated metal shard tore through what was once his brain.

Some distance away Sara Shepard looked up from behind the scope of her sniper rifle with a slight smile. Her entire unit had been forced to fight under brutal close quarters fighting all the way from the moment they breached the fort. This was the first and only opportunity she had to use her sniper rifle, and she decided she would make the most of it.

"You sure that was him?" Chief Masson said next to her as he observed the aftermath of the Lieutenant's shot. They're entire unit had gone through layer after layer of hell making their way through the deadly tunnels of the base. So many of them had died along the way, Ethan had stopped counting a while ago. He knew many of them wanted to quit, but Shepard had managed to keep everyone moving forward, pushing them hard to keep going despite their great losses. As a result they were rewarded with more enemy kills then they could have imagined, not a single criminal, pirate, slaver of any kind was left alive. But with all they had lost, Ethan knew they needed some good news.

"He sure looked like the guy in charge by the way he was yelling at everyone." Lieutenant Shepard said nonchalantly.

"Well he was definitely someone important going by how much everyone's still freaking out over there." The Chief replied in an equal tone.

"Good, time to finish this." Shepard handed her sniper rifle to her second in command knowing she would not need it for now. Casually, though emanating a scary sense of determination, she walked out from behind over, both pistols ready in each hand.

As Ethan watched one of the pirates - it was the Turian who first noticed her and reacted - tried to get a shot off from his assault rifle, but Shepard quickly leveled her pistol and fired two shots into his chest before he could line up a shot, even before he could react to the bullets in his chest Shepard put one more bullet into his head from her other gun. A Salarian ran around the corner to see what had killed his fellow slaver only to share the same fate as soon as he came into view; two in the chest, one in the head. Shepard just continued walking forward.

Another Batarian who had apparently become isolated to one side opted to run out of cover, hands in the air, yelling, "I give up, I give up, don't kill me!" Shepard didn't even look in his direction as she lifted a pistol to her side and fired. The bullet hit the batarian right in the middle of all four of his eyes, he was already dead by the time it left his skull on the other side.

Ethan saw two more Batarians pop their heads out of the main room to see what was going on. They must have barely caught a glimpse of Shepard, but nothing more. Ethan wondered if they even heard the two gunshots that killed them.

Everything seemed clear now so the Chief quickly moved up behind Shepard just as she was rounding a the corner and moving into the main control room. Of all the criminals in the area, the only two Batarians left alive where now cowering in the corner of the room they now stood. The one closest to the human marines began groveling almost immediately.

"We surrender, we surrender, we accept any of your terms. Please just don't kill us." It seemed he would keep begging for his life indefinitely had his words not been suddenly cut short by another loud gunshot from Shepard's pistol. Now sporting a new hole in his head, the dead Batarian slumped over quietly.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? We Surrender!" The last Batarian cried out in shock.

"Surrender? You don't say." Shepard's words dripped venomously, "Tell me in all of your slave runs on human settlements how many humans surrendered to you? How many people did you see beg for their lives? How many children did you witness crying for their parents, fathers and mothers that YOU killed. Now tell me what did you do with all those humans who begged for surrender?" Four Batarian eyes went wide at the Lieutenant's words. Chief Masson wondered if the slaver was remembering his own part in what Shepard was talking about, He imagined how the fear must have spread through the Batarian at the thought of sharing the same fate, but Ethan knew he would not be so lucky.

"Most of my unit is dead because of you," Shepard continued with stoic suppressed rage, "That's still a drop in the bucket of all the humans you and your friends have killed, tortured, or enslaved. And now you seriously expect me to simply let you surrender?

"But you're Alliance," The Batarian stammered out, "The Council regulations, ... you have rules against this."

"Council law doesn't apply to you any more." Shepard shot back, "Isn't that what you like to claim to justify your actions? You made your choice when you cut yourselves off from the Council. You certainly aren't going to follow their rules, why should I?" When the Batarian could offer no answer Shepard continued, "More importantly there's nothing in my mission parameters that says I have to accept your surrender. My mission is to make sure you never bother another human colony again." Another gunshot marked the end of the last remaining slaver, "And that's exactly what I'm going to do."

Sara Shepard turned around to see Chief Masson standing at the door. Ethan knew he had made a good show of looking like he was watching her back, covering all the vectors, making sure no one surprises them, but he had no doubt that Shepard knew he was really more interested in her dealings with the now dead criminals.

"Status?" Shepard ordered.

"There's still a few pockets of resistance throughout the complex." The Chief responded quickly as he checked the reports coming in with his Omni tool. "They're putting up a fight, but they're clearly shaken up something fierce. I guess none of them figured we'd get this far. And now that they have no one coordinating them it's like a bunch of headless chickens running around. They're still a threat but even with our reduced numbers." He couldn't help but pause for a moment as the memories of all the friends he'd just lost flashed in his mind. "Well, they shouldn't be problem."

"Good." Shepard said simply. Ethan could sense a breath of releif and sadness coming from the Lieutenant. Both of them were glad it was almost over.

"So not gonna even let them have their tribunal?" Ethan asked as he motioned his dead towards the Batarian bodies.

"Any human court would give them the death penalty even if it's only to avoid riots on every colony we have." Shepard explained, "It's not like the Council is gonna waste their time making sure these filth ridden monsters get a fair trial. I'm just saving some tax payer money, that's all. Plus you know as well as I do they deserve no better then this." Without skipping a beat, she walked past him and kept talking as she moved down the next tunnel. "We have our orders Chief, we're turning over every shit stinking rock in this hell hole and killing anything that moves."

* * *

_* Bioware owns Mass Effect and all related IP, cause they're awesome like that._


	2. Orbiting Earth

_**Orbiting Earth**_

* * *

_Well, what about Shepard? Earthborn but no record of her family.  
_

_Doesn't have one, she was raised on the streets, learned to look out for herself._

_She got most of her unit killed on Torfan._

_She gets the job done, no matter what the cost._

_Is that the kind of person we want protecting the galaxy?_

_That's the only kind of person who can protect the galaxy._

_I'll make the call._

* * *

Corporal Jenkins rushed down the gangway as fast as his legs could carry him. He would not have bothered to hide his excitement if he could. After all, this was a brand new ship, state of the art prototype. Even if it was just a shakedown run there was a lot to be excited about.

As he came upon the ship he allowed himself a moment to stare in awe. The ship was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It's shape was slick and deadly with four massive fusion engines on its variable adjustable wings. The name "NORMANDY" was etched along the length of the hull in large bright letters. This ship might be little, but Jenkins suspected it could really surprise people with its ferocity.

'Kinda reminds me of mom's dog back on Eden Prime, that little guy was a monster.' Jenkins thought to himself with a smile. He quickly snapped out of his reverie and rushed to the Normandy's open port. 'I can't wait to see where we go from here."

The Normandy was still in 'clean dock' so the decontamination systems were offline. The doorway into the ship was completely open allowing Jenkins to run right in. As soon as he was inside he looked around, taking the environment in. Everything looked, felt, even smelled, brand new. The layout and design of the ship was unlike anything he had seen before. The CIC was aft of all of the other major systems and stations, and on the opposite end was the cockpit which oddly seemed bigger then what he had expected.

Looking around Jenkins spotted an older, balding man in an officer's jacket. Figuring he might be the one in charge Jenkins walked up to the man with all of the efficiency demanded of him by his drill instructor.

"Corporal Richard Jenkins, Reporting for Duty, sir!" Jenkins gave the man a crisp salute.

"I'm just the navigator here, son." Pressly said to the young marine, "Captain Anderson is not here yet so you'll want to check in with our XO." He pointed back towards a woman leaning over one of the consoles surrounding the CIC dressed in her standard issue casuals.

"Yes sir." Jenkins said with a nod, then saluted the Navigator for good measure before grabbing his gear and making his way back to the woman he'd been pointed to. Hearing Captain Anderson's name only fueled his excitment further as he realized he would soon get to serve under the famous Captain. He was so eager about the possibilities this entailed he wasn't really paying attention to the XO until he was next to her. As before he set down his gear and threw out another practiced salute.

"Corporal, Richard Jenkins, ma'am." He began.

"Yeah, I heard you over there with Pressly." The woman interrupted him as she stood up and looked directly at him. Jenkins's eyes went wide with recognition and it was only months of training from the Academy that allowed him to remain standing straight. She was taller than he had expected, short cropped black hair framing her sharp facial features. Her eyes, filled with an brilliant icy blue color, always felt like they were piercing right through you.

"Is there something wrong, Corporal?" she said with a strength in her voice that not even his Drill Sergeant could have matched.

"I-- I'm sorry, ma'am." Jenkins floundered under her gaze, "It's ... it's just, you're Commander Sara Shepard!"

"That's what it says on my tags." Shepard shot back critically, "It also means I'm your superior officer, and I expect you to act like it. Are we clear, Corporal?" Her tone, while calm, left absolutely no room for discussion, not that Jenkins had much to say. What can one say when they learn that they'll be serving under the infamous 'Butcher of Torfan'?

"Yes Ma'am!" Jenkins belted out the trained response loudly.

"The ship's VI already logged your arrival, Jenkins." Commander Shepard said, her voice much more casual as she scrolled through the information on her Omni-tool. "Your locker is on the lower deck, you can go ahead and stow your gear there. Captain Anderson will want to brief the crew once he arrives, until then you're free to walk around. I suggest you stay on board, however, we need to be ready to fly as soon as the Captain joins us."

"Yes, ma'am." Jenkins responded once again.

"Good, then you're dismissed. Go on, get moving." Shepard smiled. It was a warm friendly smile that only served to confuse Jenkins even more. It was nothing like what he would have expected from the infamous Commander.

Dutifully he grabbed his gear, saluted the Commander again, and made his way down to the garage as the she had instructed. Though his body moved towards his assigned locker his mind was somewhere else completely. Captain Anderson was one thing, but to have Commander Shepard on this ship as well, this was big, really big. Part of him was worried he wouldn't measure up, compared to those two Jenkins was little more than a grunt with no battle experience.

For the most part, however, he was excited; with the way this crew was shaping up there was no way they would be stuck on some boring guard duty or escort mission. A ship like this, with a crew like that, the brass was sure to send them to where the action is. For Jenkins that meant he'd finally get his shot to show how good he really is. Of course this would all probably have to wait till after the shakedown run, nothing interesting ever happened on those.

By the time he reached his locker he noticed there were a few other crew members in the area. Like him they probably had just arrived and were getting settled in as well. Jenkins's lingering shock must have been fairly self evident across his face from the way one of the crewmen looked at him with a knowing smile.

"I recognize that look," He said, "I'm guessing you noticed who our XO is too, huh?"

"Yeah," Jenkins managed to say once his mind refocused on the present. "Definitely not what I expected."

"Our XO?" Another of the crew spoke up, a woman standing next to him. She had been rummaging through her locker but stopped and looked up at the other two curiously. "What's so special about her?"

"Don't tell me you didn't recognize her." The first crewmate said, his tone belaboring the fact that any answer should have been obvious.

"I haven't had the chance to talk to her yet," She simply shrugged in response, "You gonna tell me why I should?"

"That's Lieutenant Commander Sara Shepard." Jenkins answered proudly.

"You probably know her best from her actions on Torfan." The other crewman explained with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "She's the one who led the final assault."

"Wait you mean THE Torfan assault? That was her?" the woman was clearly impressed, or perhaps just embarrassed she had not made the connection before now.

"Yup, that's the Torfan Butcher." the other man added.

"I read about her back at the academy." Jenkins continued, "Torfan was required study, a lesson in 'how to get the job done' according to my instructor."

"I heard she killed every single criminal in the enemy base." The woman said with more than a hint of admiration in her voice. "She's the reason there hasn't been any major slaver attacks since Elysium. They say every criminal in the Terminus System still fears her name."

"They're not the only ones that should be afraid of her." The first crewman spoke like it was a whole conspiracy, "Don't forget she got her whole unit killed on Torfan."

"That's still nothing compared to the enemy losses that day." Jenkins spoke a bit more defensively then he had intended, "Besides it wasn't like her WHOLE unit got killed, a few of them survived."

"A few? Not very comforting when you think about it." the crewman shook his head, "Do you really think you'd be one of the survivors if you where there? Let's face it you go on a mission with her there's a good chance you won't come back."

"I think you just worry too much." The woman said dismissively.

"I don't think so." He continued, "She's got a reputation for being downright bloodthirsty. And that's before you consider all the rumors."

"What rumors?" Jenkins asked.

"Scuttlebutt says Torfan was nothing like the stuff she's been doing for the past five years." He began in a quiet rant. "The way I heard it, the top brass was so impressed with how she got the job done that they put her to work on a bunch of scary assignments afterwards. I'm talking seriously deadly, dangerous, Black Ops stuff. But if you ask me, you know what the really scary part it? She survived. She completed every single assignment they gave her, every damn one."

"I don't follow." His fellow crewmate said as she looked at him quizzically.

"Think about it." he replied, "She's an N7 remember, they don't give those out to just anybody. You get that for taking, and completing, some of the deadliest missions the powers that be can throw at you. If she's here that means we're being sent on some 'grade A' deadly combat situations. Considering she has a habit of getting people on her team killed, well it doesn't look good for the rest of us."

"I don't care what you say." Jenkins responded quickly, "She's still one of the best officers in the fleet when it comes to top level missions. I personally can't wait for the opportunity to fight by her side."

"Damn, I didn't realize they made your particular shade of green, rookie." The crewman teased, "You really wanna get killed that bad just for a chance to see her in action?"

"Simply put? Hell yeah." Jenkins answered confidently, "We're all risking our lives regardless when we go on missions, that's just part of the job we signed up for. No matter what you think of her, Commander Shepard is extremely successful when it comes to completing the tough missions. If getting the job done means I get to learn from someone like her; totally worth the risk."

"Your funeral kid." he replied simply.

"No it's going to be your funeral if the XO catches you talking about her behind her back like that." A rough, seasoned male voice spoke up and all three of them turned around to see its source. The man before them was dressed in his officer's uniform, the insignia labeled him as a Staff Lieutenant. Jenkins had only barely realized he had been sitting down on the other end of the locker rack this whole time, probably dealing with his own gear.

"I- I'm sorry sir," The first crewman stammered out quickly, "I didn't mean any offense. But you gotta admit, after what she did on Torfan-"

"What the Commander did, or didn't do on Torfan is irrelevant," The Lieutenant told him sternly, with a slight emphasis on Shepard's rank, "She's here now, and she's our Executive Officer. If you're really so worried that she doesn't have your best interest in mind, or if you're really so scared that she'll get you killed, then I suggest you transfer off this boat while you still can. Otherwise, shut it soldier!"

"Yes sir, sorry sir." Properly chewed down, the other crewmen quickly moved back to what they had been doing. Jenkins however wasn't quite satisfied just yet.

Jenkins had always been a friendly person, and he decided that he should get to know the Lieutenant better. On top of that he wanted to make sure to start things off on the right foot. With his mind determined, the Corporal walked over to where the Lieutenant was now sitting.

"Corporal Richard Jenkins, sir." He began, "Just wanted to take the opportunity to introduce myself properly."

"Staff Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko," The Lieutenant responded, "Nice to meet you too."

"Don't worry about the others, sir." Jenkins said, trying to put in a good word for the other crew mates, if nothing else he had always been a team player. "You know how us grunts like to talk, we didn't mean nothing by it."

"Relax Corporal." Kaiden smiled, "I've been around enough to know how things work on the lower deck. I've just never been a fan of rumor-mongering."

"Well, to be fair sir." Jenkins began with an optimistic caution in his voice, "It's not like you can blame them. I mean Captain Anderson alone would have anyone talking for weeks. But Commander Shepard, well it's pretty obvious why everyone would want to talk about her."

"In my experience, Corporal, nothing that obvious is really what it seems." Kaiden smiled, "I know a thing or two about how rumors get started, and most of the time they're completely unfounded, if not flat out lies. I've heard all the rumors surrounding the Commander, and I can assure you none of them sound plausible enough to have actually happened."

"You've heard all the rumors sir?" Jenkins asked curiously.

"Just because I don't spread rumors doesn't mean I don't keep an ear to the ground." Kaiden explained, "But if you're fishing for stories don't bother. I meant what I said, these lips are sealed."

"Aw that's too bad. I'm sure you have some wild stories to tell about me." They recognized the new voice immediately and quickly stood to attention to face Commander Shepard as she walked towards them. "I particularly like the one where I breathe fire and shoot lighting out of my ass." Her smile and tone of voice made it clear that she was just joking around, but Jenkins still didn't feel entirely comfortable under her gaze. From the way the Lieutenant was fidgeting next to him, he suspected Kaiden didn't feel much better either.

"Sorry Commander," Kaiden apologized, "Didn't mean to talk about you behind your back like that."

"Don't bother apologizing, Alenko." Shepard said with a casual wave of her hand. "I've gotten used to my reputation, I'm not surprised when people want to talk about it." She suddenly flashed the lieutenant a smile and added, "Besides I'm a big girl, Lieutenant, I don't need you to defend me. But I appreciate it nonetheless."

"Uh ... Is there something we can do for you, ma'am?" Jenkins finally decided to say something, it was bad enough he was already starting to feel like a third wheel.

"Of course there is." Shepard answered, "Lieutenant Alenko, Corporal Jenkins, I need to speak with both of you upstairs in the mess. If you're not too busy gossiping you can join me there now."

As the Commander quickly turned and walked away, Kaiden and Jenkins shared a brief uncertain glace. It was obvious neither of them knew what was going on. But they were both good soldiers, and so did not hesitate to quickly finish storing their gear before following Shepard into the elevator.

The mess area seemed like little more than a picnic table in the middle of the ship to Jenkins, but considering the size of the Normandy he was hardly surprised. He was a bit surprised to find the Commander grabbing food from one of the processor units. Why was she getting something to eat in the middle of a briefing like this? Kaiden didn't seem to mind either way, he just sat down opposite the Commander and waited patiently for her. Jenkins was unsure what to do in this situation so he remained standing next to the table. Shepard must have sensed his thoughts, or probably just didn't like him standing there, so she turned to face him.

"I'm hungry," She explained, "I figure I'd kill two birds with one stone and grab some lunch while I talk to you two." Jenkins nodded accepting her explanation but remained standing. "You'll find I tend to run things much more casually then you might be used to from basic, Corporal. I've never been big on formalities, even in the best of times, so do me a favor and relax Jenkins. Have a seat, grab a bite to eat. You too Alenko."

"Yes, ma'am." Jenkins said and took a seat, trying to relax. Kaiden for his part merely shrugged in acknowledgement before standing to grab food much like the Commander had done. Jenkins decided he wasn't hungry having already had the chance to eat before coming onboard. As he watched the Commander and the Lieutenant share a meal however he slowly became more accustomed to the friendly atmosphere.

"So ma'am." Kaiden spoke up eventually, "Want to tell us why you asked us here?"

"Rest assured I bring good news, Lieutenant." Shepard smiled. Again the smile seemed so completely misplaced from what Jenkins had heard of the Commander, and yet he was beginning to realize this was closer to who she really was. "The Captain informed me that I would be leading a ground team on this ship. Which is great for me, I always preferred the hands on approach. Naturally the Captain also asked me to select two crewmembers to be on my team."

"So we're interviewing for the position then ma'am?" Kaiden asked smoothly.

"Nah, interviews are boring." Shepard said, "Like I told you, I'm not much for formalities. I've already made my decision, and you two are it."

"Really!" Jenkins nearly squealed, unable to contain his happiness, "Oh Wow, Thank you Ma'am! It'll be a real honor to fight alongside you!" A voice in the back of his head reminded him that his current behavior might be out of line, but that seed of doubt was quickly squashed when Shepard merely chuckled in response to his outburst.

"Not to rain on the Corporal's parade," Kaiden interjected calmly, "But if I might ask, Commander, why us?"

"It's a bit of a no-brainer really." Commander Shepard explained, "I picked you, Alenko, because you're the only biotic on board." Before he could help himself Jenkins's head snapped towards the Lieutenant. He had heard a great deal about biotics, learned a lot about them in training obviously, but until now he had never actually served alongside one before.

"The value of your special skills is obvious." Shepard simply continued, ignoring the Corporal's reaction. "But on top of that you're a very capable tech and a good soldier. You make a great asset to have out in the field." There was a pause as Shepard took a bite to eat before she continued, "Now I have a lot of infiltration experience; my particular expertise has always been surgical strikes. If the shit hits the fan, however, we'll need someone who can lay down some serious firepower and do it effectively. This is why I chose Jenkins here." She shifted her gaze to Jenkins who was starting to get used to it. "I saw your scores from the Academy, very impressive, but more importantly, you have a great attitude. You're definitely the kind of person I would want next to me in a firefight."

"I ... " Jenkins was lost for words, "I'm really happy you think that, ma'am." He was thinking about how stupid that sounded out loud when thankfully Kaiden decided to speak up as well.

"Thank you, Ma'am." He told Shepard, "I promise not to let you down."

"I'm sure you won't." Shepard replied.

"Say Commander," Kaiden continued, "Would you mind if I asked you a question?" Jenkins was curious about what Kaiden had to ask, and why he would ask now. Granted he really wanted to get to know the Commander better as well, but still felt more intimidated by her reputation then he would have liked to admit. So he was glad the Lieutenant had decided to ask instead.

"You wanna know about some of the rumors surrounding my 'exploits' right?" Shepard replied after studying Kaiden for a moment.

"If I'm out of line at all, just say so, ma'am." Kaiden replied casually, "Like you said, I'm the only biotic on the ship, which is not an uncommon situation for me. My point is I know a thing or two about dealing with any number of stupid rumors people might have about you."

"Really?" Shepard said jokingly, "Does this mean you can't read minds or cause my brain to explode just by looking at me?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Commander." Kaiden smiled back, "To be honest you'd be surprised how many times I've had to explain to my superior officer what it is that I can and can't actually do."

"Well don't worry Lieutenant." Shepard said reassuringly, "I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I've read up on the basics. I'm sure you can fill in any details along the way."

"I appreciate it." Kaiden said, "But I was really wondering about you. I figure it's only fair to give you a chance to clear the air regarding your exploits. If that's alright with you, ma'am."

"Well I'll make it easy for you Alenko. For both of you." The Commander looked back and forth between him and Jenkins. "I'm a very straight forward person, what you see is what you get. If you want to know anything about me, just ask."

"So... is it true then?" Jenkins ventured after a moment of silence, "About you running all those Black Ops missions."

"I sure as hell didn't sit on my ass for the past five years if that's what you mean." Shepard laughed, "I did get sent on a couple covert ops, most of which are classified I'm afraid. That said, I doubt I did anything nearly as interesting as the rumors might suggest. Most of the time I got shipped somewhere, located the target, put a bullet in his head, then went home."

"I'm sure you must have seen some excitement since Torfan." Jenkins insisted.

"Well sure," Shepard confessed, "There were a few exciting adventures here and there. But nothing compared to Torfan. When it comes down to it, the reason I got picked for those missions was because the brass knew I'd get the job done. It was less about 'This Mission's Dangerous', and more about 'Failure's Not an Option'."

Jenkins considered the Commander's words, wondering what to ask next, but before either he or the Lieutenant got the chance to ask anything else, they were interrupted by the effeminate voice of the Normandy's VI.

"Logged: Captain Anderson is aboard. XO Shepard stands relieved."

"Looks like the small talk is over." Shepard spoke as she got up, "Captain's here, so you all better head up top, he's going to want to brief us all right away."

"Aye, aye, ma'am" Jenkins said, he stood up and gave a salute to both of the officers.

Quickly the young Corporal made his way up the stairs to the ship's main control deck. He was all too eager to finally meet the famous Captain face to face. Thinking about all the possibilities, he had no idea what to expect. However as he stepped past the doors onto the main deck and looked across CIC, the very last thing he had expected to see was the imposing figure of a Turian Spectre standing next to Captain Anderson.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Just added a bit of proofing to the two chapters. I was mostly trying to explore the difference between the real Shepard verses the perception everyone has of her. I wanted to use Jenkins because he tends to be underused, instead I wanted people to get to know him and even connect with him a little bit which makes his eventual death more significant. His enthusiasm also provided a nice counterpoint to the fear that Shepard's reputation normally generates. If anything I feel like I down played the scrary reputation bit but I decided it wouldn't help to belabor the point.

p.s. To those of you who asked, I hope to have the next chapter up soon. I'm also in the market for Beta Readers to help spruce up my writing where it might be lacking.


	3. Charon Relay

_**Charon Relay**_

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Sara Shepard took a moment to double check the contacts of her armor. It was a standard issue Onyx model that she had come to expect, but she still wasn't completely accustomed to the additional ceramic platting that came with the Medium rated armor.

She knew that properly fitted, good quality medium armor had absolutely no loss in range of motion and ease of movement compared to the lighter counterpart, but the Alliance politics being what they are, she had to do with "sufficiently" fitted and "tolerable" quality armor. Admittedly the armor used by the Alliance wasn't all that bad - it was at least above average which is why they used it - but in the interest of monetary efficiency they had opted to go with a lower bid on their armor manufacturing contract.

_'Typical.'_ Commander Shepard simply shook her head. Whatever the case may be her new armor fit her well enough and offered her more protection. But what made it really special was the addition of her 'N7' vocational code stenciled on the chest plate, along with the custom red striping that marked her as a Commander. It was a symbol of how far she'd come, even if she had to walk down an ugly road to get there.

_"The Arcturus Prime Relay's in range. Initiating Transmission Sequence."_

Joker's voice called out through the comm system running through the pre-jump checklist. The Normandy was already well into its maiden voyage and would soon make her very first Mass Relay jump through the Charon Relay. Shepard wanted to be front and center when that happened so she quickly finished securing all her weapons to their hardpoints and headed up towards the cockpit.

_"We are connected, calculating target mass and destination."_

Normally there was no need for the pilot to call out every step for a jump, but this being the ship's first jump everyone wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong. The entire crew was running through every checklist imaginable, checking and double checking every system on the ship to make sure there were no surprises. A ship's first jump was always important to the crew flying her.

_"Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector."_

Indeed the whole crew seemed eager and focused on the task at hand, buzzing around her as Shepard moved forward through the deck. Of course they made sure to acknowledge their Commander as she past. A nod here, a salute there, a simple "Commander" from a crew mate as he walked past. As the XO all Shepard had to do right now was make sure everyone else was doing their job. Passing by the Heat Loadout Management stations it was obvious this was the case, so there was little else left to so but enjoy the ride. The only exception on deck was Corporal Jenkins and Doctor Chakwas, neither of whom had any important tasks to worry about and so did a good job of staying out of everyone else's way.

_"All stations secure for transit."_

As it turned out there was one more person on the ship without a specific job to focus on for this first jump, and he was already in the cockpit. As Shepard approached her gaze drilled into the back of the Turian Spectre but only for a moment.

_'How the hell does he always manage to end up wherever I go?'_ Sara thought to herself. Even if the Normandy was a small ship, the Commander had found herself running into Nihlus, their Spectre guest, far more often then anyone else on the ship. It was fast becoming something much more then mere coincidence.

Shepard decided to deliberately ignore Nihlus for now and focus on the systems readouts across the various displays that covered the cockpit of the Normandy. The Normandy also had two small windows on either side of the hull here, they weren't much use most of the time but it was nice to have somewhere on the ship where you could look outside.

_"Board is green. Approach run has begun."_

The older, more pragmatic officers in the Navy had little use for such luxuries. Ships were entirely sensor driven, by the time you managed to get visual contact on another ship in the far reaches of space there was usually little point by then. Personally, however, Sara Shepard always loved being able to stare out the window of a spaceship. Growing up on Earth she never had an opportunity to space travel, now that it was part of her job description she still felt a sense of wonder every time she looked out the window of a ship and saw some celestial object or another from a truly extra terrestrial point of view.

Already Sara could see the giant Mass Relay growing bigger in front of them. She couldn't help the tingle of excitement that ran down her body as Joker counted down to the moment when they would enter the mass effect stream and be thrown across the galaxy faster then the speed of light.

_"Hitting the relay in three... two... one..."_

As Joker's countdown hit zero, a powerful bolt of energy reached out from the Mass Relay and the entire ship was engulfed in the Relay's Mass Effect field. Shepard could feel the subtle shift in reality play across her skin as they easily slipped through the stream created by the Relay. Suddenly it was all over, in the blink of an eye they had been thrust hundreds of light years to a completely different star cluster. Shepard could sense a wave of cheer and relief flow over the crew behind her, everyone was quietly celebrating a successful first jump. Joker to his credit continued professionally announcing the last bullet points of his Relay Jump Checklist.

"Thrusters, check. Navigation, check. Internal Emission Sink engaged. All systems online. Drift... Just under 1500K." Joker said with a not so subtle hint of smugness in his voice. It was well deserved, Shepard couldn't even remember the last time she had been on a jump with anything less then a 2 Meg Drift. Not that she ever really kept track of that sort of thing on every jump, but still 1500K was basically a bullseye for the jump.

"1500 is good, your Captain would be pleased." Nihlus said in the alien reverberating voice that was a hallmark of his species. He apparently agreed with her own thoughts, though Shepard thought he could have sounded a bit less patronizing about it. Joker, perhaps not surprisingly, enjoyed the Turian's commentary even less. It didn't make much difference either way, Nihlus quickly turned around and began making a purposeful gait towards the back of the main deck before anyone could respond to him.

"I hate that guy." He blurted out as soon as the Spectre was out of earshot.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment, so you hate him?" Kaiden glanced sideways at the pilot with a smirk. He had been sitting in one of the co-pilot seats; given his tech skills he had been assigned to monitor the local control systems during the Jump. It was a one time task for the ship's maiden voyage. They really only needed a co-pilot during intense maneuvers such as close range combat. Even then they could get away without one if the pilot was very highly skilled. A fact which Joker was none too shy to remind everyone of.

"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom, that's good." Joker continued his rant as Shepard took a step closer. "I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit the a target the size of a pin head, so that's incredible." He looked back at his own console before adding in a quieter voice, "Besides Spectres are trouble, I don't like having one on board. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid." Kaiden responded without missing a beat, "The Council helped fund this project, they have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yup that's the official story," Joker countered with clear sarcasm, "But only an idiot believes the official story."

"They don't send Spectres on shakedown runs." Shepard chimed in. She agreed with Joker, and so did many of the crew. Despite the joint Turian design of the Normandy, despite the Council's funding, no one on the entire ship expected that they would send a Spectre on their first mission. Everyone felt at least a little uncomfortable with his presence.

"So there's got to be more then the Captain's letting on." Joker suggested. Kaiden was about to offer a counter point when local comm interrupted them with the Captain's voice.

"Joker, Status report." Captain Anderson's voice called out. Even across the comm system his voice alone commanded authority.

"Just cleared the Mass Relay, Captain." Joker dutifully gave his report. "Stealth systems are engaged, Everything looks Solid."

"Good, find a comm buoy and link us in to the network." the Captain quickly responded. "I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."

"Aye, aye, Captain." Joker replied, "Better brace yourself sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"He's already here, Lieutenant." the Captain's rebuke was not even remotely lessened by the small speakers that delivered it. Joker could only close his eyes and shake his head in subtle embarrassment. Kaiden didn't waste the opportunity to give him a teasing smile. Shepard meanwhile was just focused on repressing a laugh.

"Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." With that the Captain shut off the comm link, ending the conversation.

"You get that Commander?" Joker called out behind him.

"Great. You pissed the Captain off, now I'm going to pay for it." Shepard said unable to resist the opportunity to joke with the Joker.

"Pfft, don't blame me. The Captain's always in a bad mood." He shot back defensively.

"Only when he's talking to you Joker." Kaiden added with a smile. Commander Shepard was already walking away, too far to really pay attention to Joker's response.

As she reached the front of the CIC she first noticed Navigator Pressly having a conversation over a local comm. Normally she would not have concerned herself with such casual conversation but it sounded like he was getting rather worked up about it, and the subject matter was definably something she needed to be concerned about. Like so many others on the ship they were talking about Nihlus. As the ship's XO, Shepard knew she had to stay on top of this thing if only to make sure the crew could focus on their job.

"Something bothering you Pressly?" Shepard asked as soon as she was next to him.

"No ma'am," The Navigator responded after he turned to face her, "Just having a chat with Adams down in engineering, don't mean to cause any problems."

"It's alright," Shepard said, "I take it you don't trust our Turian guest?"

"Don't trust Turians in general," Pressly admitted, "Runs in the family, my grandfather fought in the First Contact War."

"That was a long time ago." Shepard pointed out, "Surely you can't blame Nihlus for anything that happened back then."

"I suppose you're right," Pressly said, "I guess I'm just stuck in the old ways. Don't worry ma'am it won't be a problem. It's just ┘"

"It's just that Nihlus isn't an ordinary Turian." Shepard finished for him.

"Exactly." Pressly replied "He shouldn't be here, and I don't mean because he's a Turian. It just doesn't add up, ma'am."

"You can be straight with me, Pressly." Shepard assured him, "You know that."

"Spectres are elite operatives," Pressly explained, "The right hand of the Council themselves, their top level agents. Sending one on an Alliance vessel just to watch is a waste of their abilities. This is supposed to be just a shakedown run, so why send a Spectre, a Turian Spectre, unless something else was going on. As if that wasn't bad, we've even got Captain Anderson on board."

"You have a problem with the Captain?" Shepard asked.

"No ma'am. Not at all." Pressly replied with a certainty, as if proving he wasn't the least bit mutinous. "I just don't understand why he's here. The man's a hero, a living legend. If you melted all the medals he's earned over his career you'd have enough gold to build a life-sized statue of himself. So why is he in charge of a simple shakedown cruise? You don't send a soldier like that on a do-nothing mission. But the way the Captain is behaving, it's like he's preparing for a full scale assault."

"It does seem odd," Shepard said thinking about how serious Anderson was taking this whole operation, it really didn't seem in line with what she had been told. "Though I can imagine the Admirals in charge wanting to be extra careful with the Normandy, considering the stealth systems and all."

"Well that's another thing that doesn't make sense." Pressly added, "This is a one of a kind prototype, with an advanced stealth system that no one else in the entire galaxy has. Even if the top brass wanted their best Captain to keep an eye on things there's no reason to have a full crew on board unless there was a risk of an engagement of some sort. We should be running with a skeleton crew, reduces the risk if something goes wrong, not to mention less chance for a leak. And you certainly wouldn't bring along a Turian Spectre to keep an eye on things as well."

"You think the Alliance Brass is holding out on us?" Shepard asked, her voice probably betrayed her feelings on the matter more then was appropriate for a senior officer.

"I don't know, but I know something's going on." Pressly spoke carefully, "No offense ma'am but if Captain Anderson is in charge then what are you doing here?"

"You're gonna need to explain that one, Pressly." The Commander raised an eyebrow in the Navigator's direction.

"Again I'm not trying to be rude." Pressly reiterated his caveat, "I just mean that you're a marine, you do your job on the field. In fact you're an extremely skilled field agent, possibly the best in the Alliance. Even so, if this is just a simple jog to and from Eden Prime then there's no reason to have you here. Captain Anderson is more then enough to keep everyone in line. Beyond that we really only need people who can work on the ship's systems."

"I do have some technical expertise you know." Shepard offered.

"Oh I know ma'am." Pressly replied quickly "But like I said you're a field agent, your skills are best suited out in the battlefield. We just don't need someone with your high level of expertise for a shakedown run."

"I'm still not entirely sure how I should take that Pressly." The Commander smiled though she didn't let her gaze budge.

"Take it as a compliment ma'am." Pressly to his credit managed to keep a level head under the Commander's scrutiny, "I think you're a great officer and a top notch leader. If Captain Anderson wasn't here I would be more then happy with you in charge. If you weren't and the Captain was still here I might be able to understand. But why have both of you here for the Normandy's maiden voyage? That's just a waste of personnel, and I don't think there's a single Admiral in the Alliance that would purposefully allow that. Seems to me we're out here on false pretenses. I'm sorry ma'am, but I just don't like it."

"I hear what you're getting at, you're not the first person to bring this up." Shepard consoled the Navigator, "Honestly I've had a weird feeling about this mission from the moment I stepped onto the Normandy." She then leaned in closer, speaking softly so only Pressly could hear. "Not that you heard this from me, but I know when I smell a cover. There's definitely something else going on." She quickly leaned back adding in her normal tone, "That said I trust the Captain, I'm sure there's a very important reason for all of this. Until we know more I think it's best we keep doing our job as best we can."

"Aye aye ma'am." Pressly said with a smile, "I trust the Captain as well so if he tells us to go somewhere that's where we'll go. I just wish he'd tell us why we're really going there."

"Well I'll see if I can get any answers when I go speak with him." Shepard smiled back.

"I'd appreciate it ma'am." Pressly added with a respectful salute.

Commander Shepard gave the Navigator a simple smile and nod before walking past. Pressly's sentiments were rather common around the ship. She had every confidence that the people on board the Normandy were talented and disciplined enough that they wouldn't let their concerns about the Spectre get in the way of their duty. Still it was her job to make sure the crew didn't have any problems, which meant making sure she heard their concerns. Shepard wasn't much of a people person, truth be told, but she'd always had a sense of protectiveness over her subordinates, even before she joined the Alliance. She might have called it a maternal instinct if not for the absurdity of that notion.

As luck would have it he noticed the young Corporal Jenkins talking to the resident Doctor Chakwas, not surprisingly they were discussing everyone's favorite on board Spectre. Jenkins was quite the energetic sort. A classic eager rookie just waiting to the opportunity to prove himself. He reminded Shepard of the little brother she never had, not really anyway. Despite the disturbing amount of jubilence and naivete' he tended to express, Shepard had to admit she kinda liked that about him. Most of the soldiers she's had to deal with during her service have been around long enough to become all too cynical about everything in the galaxy. It was nice to have the fresh breath of optimism that Jenkins brought to the table, even if it might not last that long.

The good doctor standing next to him gave Shepard hope that his optimism might last. Shepard had tried to spend some time with the doctor beyond her initial examination, though the rigors of command had somewhat limited how well she got to know her before they took off. Doctor Chakwas struck Shepard as a surprisingly optimistic person. Granted hers was a cautious optimism, tempered by her age and experience, she was much more of a realist that even Shepard herself but somehow always seemed to believe in the bright side of things. If anyone on the ship had a maternal instinct it was definitely Chakwas, and she carried it in droves.

Conveniently these two had a tendency to talk with everyone on the ship. Chakwas, with her position as the ship's Chief Doctor and her warm nature, made it easy for people to let their guard down and trust her with their real thoughts. Jenkins on the other hand just loved to talk to everyone, and was just too damn friendly to avoid talking with. All in all Shepard decided this would be a wonderful opportunity to catch up on some ship wide gossip regarding their current situation.

"What do you think commander?" Jenkins greeted the Commander with a salute as soon as she was barely within reach of their conversation. It was like he was always prepared to talk to anyone who wandered too close. "We won't be staying on Eden Prime long, will we? I'm itching for some real action!"

"I sincerely hope you're kidding corporal," Doctor Chakwas spoke in equal parts friendly teasing and patronizing concern. "Your idea of 'real action' usually ends up with me patching up soldiers in the infirmary."

"You need to relax, Corporal" Shepard said as she walked closer, "The last thing you need is to start looking for a fight."

"Sorry, Commander, but this waiting's killing me!" Jenkins explained quickly, "I've never been on a mission like this before! Not one with a Spectre on board!" Sara couldn't help but smile at his optimism. While most everyone else on the ship was concerned with what dangers they were running into - something she realized her own reputation was not helping any - Jenkins by contrast just viewed the whole thing as a wonderful opportunity.

"None of us have as far as I know Jenkins." Shepard told him. "No reason to get hysterical over it. Just treat this like every assignment you've had and everything will work out fine."

"Easy for you to say!" Jenkins exclaimed. "You've proven yourself on Torfan. Everyone knows what you can do. This is my big chance. I need to show the brass what I can do!"

'Oh here we go.' Shepard thought to herself, the last thing she wanted was someone to try to emulate what she did on Torfan. "You're young Corporal, you've got a long career ahead of you, don't do anything stupid to mess it up."

"Don't worry ma'am I'm not mess this up." Jenkins explained, "I'm going to do the best I can, especially since we have a Spectre with us! That's why I'm so wound up."

"Speaking of him," Shepard tried to steer the conversation as best she could, though in truth it was still fairly blunt compared to most people, "Don't suppose either of you have heard anything regarding Nihlus."

"Well I don't think I can tell you anything you don't already know." Doctor Chakwas offered, "Turians are generally well respected in Citadel space. They have a strong sense of honor and duty. If Nihlus is anything like his people you can expect him to be a honorable man. Beyond that I haven't spoken more then two words to him since he's been on the ship. I'm afraid your guess is as good as mine."

"Nihlus isn't just any Turian though, he's a Spectre!" Jenkins jumped in with his trademark enthusiasm, "And one of the best! I heard he took out an entire enemy platoon all by himself."

"You heard huh?" Shepard smirked, "I don't suppose either of you have heard anything about Spectres in general?"

"Only what they've shown us in the vids." Chakwas explained, "They're a branch of the Council themselves, usually work alone or in small groups. Their under the direct control of the Council, and are tasked with maintaining the stability and protection of Citadel space."

"Protection at any cost." Jenkins added in admiration, "Don't forget that part. The Spectres work above the law!"

"Sounds kinda dangerous when you think about it." Shepard suggested, "Imagine if one of them went out of control."

"I suppose if something like that were to happen the Council could revoke their Spectre status. Citadel Security would take over from there." Chakwas said.

"Those C-Sec grunts wouldn't stand a chance against a Spectre." Jenkins said as if proud of this fact, "If a Spectre goes rogue there's only one way to deal with it. Send another Spectre to finish him off, that's Spectre Justice."

"I think the corporal has been watching one too many spy vids." Chakwas laughed, Shepard couldn't but add in a smile in response.

"Still makes you wonder," Shepard said thoughtfully, "Why we don't have any of our own in there? Used to be there weren't any humans in C-Sec after all, now look at us."

"Well Spectres are a bit different." Chakwas explained, "Typically they only come from the council races, though I suppose they could make an exception. However it's not like there's an application or training route. Spectres are requited on an individual basis, and whatever method they use to determine recruits we're certainly not privy to."

"Hey Commander, you know you'd make a good Spectre." Jenkins's statement caught Shepard off guard, in part because she could never see herself joining the Spectres, mainly because she was never comfortable with any hero worship directed her way. "After what you did on Torfan, that's what the Spectres are looking for. Ruthless efficiency and Determination. Someone who's always willing to get the job done no matter what the cost." That only made things worse for Shepard.

"I didn't enjoy Torfan, Corporal, I just did what had to be done." That came out of the Commander's mouth much angrier then she had intended. Certainly the intensity in her voice was not the least bit lost on the other two.

"I didn't mean- ... That's not..." Jenkins struggled under Shepard's gaze, all of his previous enthusiasm seemed instantly drained. "I'm sorry ma'am, I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't offend me, Jenkins," Shepard sighed, "I just don't want you to learn the wrong lesson from me." She smiled at the Corporal to let him know she was already past it.

"Understood ma'am." Jenkins said, quickly regaining his composure.

"This is all pointless speculation." Doctor Chakwas moved in for both their sakes to inject a bit of calm realism into the conversation, "The Spectres aren't interested in recruiting any humans no matter how skilled they may be."

"You're right, Doctor." Shepard decided that it would be best to move on to another topic, so she looked back to Jenkins before asking, "Say, you're from Eden Prime, Jenkins, what's it like?"

"It's very peaceful." Jenkins said remembering the times from his childhood. "The city planners were really careful with development so there's very little crime or pollution. There's a reason they call it Paradise. But it's a little too peaceful for me. Nothing interesting ever happens there. That's why I ended up joining the Alliance, it my chance to get out there and explore the galaxy, looking for adventure."

"I see the recruitment videos are still all too fresh in your mind Corporal." Chakwas smiled.

"Any idea why we're headed there now?" Shepard asked.

"Honestly I have no clue, ma'am." Jenkins replied, "It's very quiet over there, I guess they figure its a good place for a shakedown run, no chance of running into trouble."

"Perhaps," Shepard said, "I should go, The Captain's waiting for me." She gave each of them a simple nod before continuing on her way. Chakwas simple nodded in return while Jenkins true to form gave her a salute as she walked away.

The Normandy's comm room was only a couple of steps from there so Shepard soon found herself in the middle of what also served as the main briefing room. She didn't find the Captain there like she expected. Instead she found that once again Nihlus was there waiting for her.

_'God Dammit, not this shit again.'_ Shepard thought to herself but she remained quiet as she approached the Turian. The Spectre looked like he had been busying himself going over various reports on some of the vid screens next to the comm station.

"Commander Shepard." Nihlus spoke casually as he turned to face her, "I was hoping you'd get here first. It will give us a chance to talk."

"What about?" Shepard asked allowing a small hint of belligerence to linger in her tone.

"I'm interested in this world we're going to, Eden Prime." Nihlus said nodding towards the vid screens behind him. "I hear it's quite beautiful."

"I'm a marine. Not some tourist on vacation." Shepard barked out. It was a polite way of saying _get to the damn point_. Though the tone in which Shepard spoke wasn't all that polite.

"But it's more then some tourist destination, isn't it?" Nihlus continued undeterred, "Eden Prime has become something of a symbol for your people, hasn't it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them." He turned back towards the vid screens before adding, "But how safe is it really?"

"Are you trying to scare me Spectre?" The Commander refused to take his bait as she took a step towards him.

"Your people are still newcomers, Shepard." Nihlus explained, though it sounded more like a lecture to Shepard. "The galaxy can be a very dangerous place. Is the Alliance truly ready for this?"

Shepard was about to respond when the doors to the comm room slide open. Nihlus and then Shepard turned to see Captain Anderson walking in.

"I think it's time we told the Commander what's really going on." Anderson spoke to Nihlus.

"This mission is far more then a simple shakedown run." Nihlus told Shepard taking a few determined steps forward.

"I figured that part out already." Shepard spoke flippantly.

"We're making a covert pick-up on Eden Prime," Anderson explained, "That's why we needed the stealth systems operational."

"I don't like being kept in the dark, Captain." Shepard said coolly, though she made no effort to hide how much she disliked the situation.

"This came straight from the top." Anderson said unapologetically, "Information on a strictly need to know basis."

_'I needed to know before we left dock'_, Shepard thought to herself. In truth she was used to this sort of thing from many previous covert missions, that didn't mean she hated it any less.

"So what's the package?" She asked instead.

"A research team on Eden Prime unearthed some kind of beacon." Anderson paused briefly before dropping the bomb. "It was Prothean."

"I thought the Protheans vanished fifty thousand years ago!" Shepard blurted out making her understandable surprise quite evident.

"Their legacy still remains." Nihlus explained. "The Mass Relays, the Citadel, our ship drives. It's all based on Prothean technology."

"I don't need the history lesson." Shepard shot back at the Turian.

"This is big, Shepard." Anderson spoke up, "The last time Humanity made a discovery like this, it jumped our technology forward 200 years. But Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the Beacon back to the Citadel for proper study."

"Obviously this goes beyond human interests, Commander, this could affect every species in Council space." The way Nihlus spoke it sounded more like a warning.

"Are we expecting trouble?" Shepard asked.

"I'm always expecting trouble." Nihlus said still sounding a bit patronizing.

"Indulge me." Shepard responded. "We're going through a lot of effort just to recover one Prothean artifact."

"This isn't some simple data cache we're talking about here." Nihlus shot back, "The beacon is still functional, this means working Prothean technology is in our grasp."

Shepard had no response. Though she was no expert on the Protheans, the ramifications of what he had said were obvious.

"Even the simple data cache we discovered on Mars was enough to leapfrog our technology forward by centuries." Anderson said thoughtfully, "Just imagine what sort of information this beacon could hold. What if it contains a weapons archive? We can't let it fall into the wrong hands."

"Wrong hands?" Shepard asked simply.

"Eden Prime might be a peaceful colony." the Captain explained further, "But we're still well into the Traverse. Something this big we have to assume the intel will leak out to the Terminus Systems eventually, it's only a matter of time before any of the criminal or political forces there try to make a move as a result."

"We're still in Citadel space." Shepard countered, "If any of the Terminus Clans attack it would be an act of war."

"Perhaps," Nihlus agreed cautiously. "But such a prize may prove too hard to resist. The Council can't send any more ships to secure the area without risking a full scale war themselves."

Shepard took a moment to process the information. It all seemed straight forward, if quite significant. Still she couldn't help but feel like she was missing something. This simple shakedown run had turned into a not so simple covert pickup run. That explained the ship, all things considered that explained the crew as well. The significance of this find explained why the brass might want her along as well. Technically she had to admit that having Captain Anderson and Nihlus along made sense also, but something about it still didn't feel right to her. Then she noticed Nihlus looking at her. He wasn't just looking at her, Shepard realized, he was studying her, observing her. But why?

"I get the feeling there's something else." Shepard said as she bore her gaze back at the Spectre, the only reaction she could get from the Turian was a small twitch of his mandibles.

"You're right, there's more Shepard." As Captain Anderson spoke the Spectre walked up and stood next to Shepard, she never took his eyes off him for even a second, "Nihlus isn't just here for the Beacon. He's also here to evaluate you."

_'What the hell?'_ That was enough to get Shepard to look away from Nihlus, snapping her head to look at Anderson, "Since when do we answer to a Spectre?"

"It's not like that." Anderson shook his head dismissing Shepard's outburst, "You're smart enough to know how things work, Commander. The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time. Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel Council. The Spectres represent the Council's power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows how far the Alliance has come."

The Captain let the implications of what he had said hang in the air. Though Shepard quickly realized what he was saying she was still caught off guard by the suggestion. _'He's serious about this, they want me to become a Spectre.'_

"I've read your file, Shepard." Nihlus began, "I was very impressed by what you did at Torfan. Grim business, but you got the job done. I was equally impressed that you did not let the events there hold you back, your missions since then having been nothing short of amazing, if only to highlight your ability to accomplish tasks which would be considered impossible by anyone else."

"That must be just another day on the job for you guys." Shepard was joking in part, trying to point out how ridiculous this all was. Nihlus apparently didn't catch on, or perhaps simply didn't bother to.

"Indeed, that is why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres." He said simply.

_'you did what?'_ Shepard thought, "Why would a Turian want a human in the Spectres?"

"Not all Turians resent Humanity." Nihlus explained with a confident sincerity. "Some of us see the potential of your species. We see what you have to offer to the rest of the galaxy and to the Spectres. We are an elite group. It's rare to find an individual with the skills we seek. I don't care that you're human. I only care that you can do the job."

"I take it you're on board with this Captain?" Shepard said after a moments pause.

"Earth needs this Shepard. We're counting on you." Anderson implored. Shepard for her part could only nod, all things considered it wasn't like she had a choice.

"I need to see your skills for myself Commander." Nihlus continued, "Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together."

"You'll be in charge of the ground team." the Captain laid out more mission parameters, "Secure the beacon and get it onto the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission."

"Just give the word captain." Shepard said confidently, she was determined to treat this just like any other mission.

"We should be getting close to Eden-"

"Captain, we got a problem." Joker's voice loudly cutoff the Captain mid-sentence over the intercom.

"What's wrong Joker?" Captain Anderson asked quickly.

"Transmission from Eden Prime, sir. You better see this." Joker's voice was saturated with concern.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, so um, this one came out a lot longer then I thought it was gonna be. Originally this was going to be just a short bit, probably not even a full chapter, but then it just blossomed like crazy, I blame all the good writing on Bioware's part.

I know I left out the whole Eden Prime transmission bit, I may still use it but I kinda like ending it with a sort of cliff hanger like this. Plus like I said it was already getting way too long. Hope you all enjoy this chapter, next chapter will be Eden Prime, and will finally have some real action.


	4. Eden Prime I

_**Eden Prime**_

* * *

Corporal Richard L. Jenkins was back home. There was no doubt about it, this was the Eden Prime he remembered from before he left to join the Alliance. Part of him missed his family and his old hang outs, the rest of him was horrified by what he saw. The whole area was hostile, many of the habitation towers were firing their defense grids at some unseen enemy. The whole colony, his home, was under attack.

"My god, what happened here?"

The horror grew when he saw the charred out forms of what used to be humans. They were completely unrecognizable now but Jenkins couldn't help but wonder if he knew them. This wasn't a terribly large colony, what if that body had been one of his childhood friends, what if that other body was one of his relatives, his teachers, his parents? What about that body? And that other one? Who could have done this?

Commander Shepard gave him a sympathetic look, but one bolstered by her unique sense of confidence. As if to say in a single glance 'I understand, but you need to stay focused'. Unsure of how to deal with the situation, Jenkins did the only think he could do, he fell back on his training, following the Commander's orders precisely.

Whatever his crew mates may have feared regarding her reputation, Jenkins at that moment was never so grateful to have someone like Commander Shepard leading his team. She had the experience to deal with situations like this, she knew what had to be done to make it out alive. With her in charge, he felt safe.

Commander Shepard suddenly made a hand signal, and in response Jenkins immediately stopped and knelt down next to her. Something had bothered her, or maybe she was just being extra cautious? Whatever the case she simply gave him another hand signal to move forward.

In the Academy they teach you that when a commanding officer tells you to move forward, you do it right away. If you lag behind you will get someone killed. However they also teach you that in any combat situation where you have yet to engage the enemy, when your commanding officer tells you to move forward they expect you to do so with utmost caution. This meant moving to the next available cover point if at all possible.

Jenkins was taught this but didn't really consider all the nuances of what that meant. He had to follow orders. He had to push forward. He had to show everyone what he could do; his superiors, his family, himself. This wasn't just about the higher ups recognizing him anymore. This was about defending what mattered to him.

As he continued moving forward he was determined to find the enemy and take them out. He was less interested in doing so cautiously which was why he hadn't yet moved behind cover. Because now more than ever, he had a mission to complete, and he had to defend his home.

He heard a strange electronic whine of an alien antigrav machine only seconds before looking up and seeing three scout drones coming around a corner. He had never seen drones that looked anything like that before, he never would again. He didn't have time to consider what he was looking at, by then all three drones were already firing at the only target they had encountered. The trio of bursts from their alien weapons quickly ripped through his shields.

Corporal Richard L. Jenkins only had time to scream, then his entire world went dark.

* * *

Gunnery Chief Ashley M. Williams was, above all, a good soldier. She had to be.

In the ensuing attack she had become split from her unit. She had seen many of them killed by those ... things. As far as she knew she was the only one left alive. She was vastly outnumbered, out-gunned, and this enemy wasn't likely to stop trying to kill her anytime soon. Anyone in her position would have given up by now, should have given up by now.

But Ashley Williams was a good soldier, and good soldiers never give up.

The enemy had taken over the dig site, there was no way she would be able to get close enough to see what was going on. For now all she could do was keep moving. She saw two of the small scout drones coming her way, she could hear the soft whine of their alien antigrav systems. Before she could hope that they had not spotted her they locked on and began firing in her direction.

And so she ran, as fast as her legs could carry her, she forced them to move as hard as possible, ignoring the burning she felt spreading across her muscles. The drones managed to get in close firing their weapons at her from behind. She stumbled forward as the deadly force of the shots were absorbed by her kinetic shields. The blasts had left her shields completely drained, the next volley from the drones would surely finish her off.

She didn't even bother to think about it, she knew she had to do something and do it fast. She turned around, pulling out her pistol as she did so. Already off balance, the quick turn on uneven ground made it impossible to remain standing, so she didn't even bother. Instead she allowed herself to fall backwards as she fired her pistol. The unexpected motion would make it more difficult for the drones to remain locked onto her. She hit the ground hard, she could feel her breath being forced out of her lungs, but she didn't care. Her targets were in her sight, a pair of the enemy drones moving closer. She continued to fire her pistol at them relying more on the auto targeting systems of her gun and pure dumb luck then she was comfortable with. She was rewarded with several direct hits which caused the drones to explode and fall to the ground in a satisfying display of disintegration.

As she allowed herself to resume breathing she looked up from the drone debris to notice two of the enemy ... She still wasn't sure what they where, and her suspicions were only making her more uncertain. The two enemy units were handling a captured human. Ashley could tell he was a civilian, and she could tell he was still alive. She sat up as she watched the enemy handling the human over one of their strange devices. Ashley's soldier instinct told her that she had to rescue the civilian somehow, it was her duty, she just had to figure out how to...

Before she could complete that thought a giant spike burst up from the enemy device, impaling the still living human through the chest. His body twitched briefly then went still, his blood slowly dripping down the length of the mechanical spike that killed him.

Ashley didn't even realize she let out a gasp at the gruesome sight until she noticed the two enemy units turn to face her, their strange heads featuring a single flashlight looking lens of some sort, both of which were now looking in her direction. The alien creatures exchanged a number of strange clicks and whirling sounds of some electronic origin which one could only assume was some form of communication.

Ashley knew she was vulnerable. Without shields, laying prone in the open, she was as good as dead. Once again her soldier instinct took over and she quickly got up to her feet looking for cover. She noticed an outcrop of some rocky boulder jutting out from the ground on the hill nearby. Scrambling quickly she ran around the boulder allowing her some amount of safe cover while her shields recharged. As the same time she holstered her pistol and pulled out her trusted assault rifle from the hardpoint on her back where it was held. Immediately the rifle unfolded in her arms into its combat mode.

The Gunnery Chief was focused solely on her enemy, she could hear their strange electronic noises coming slowly closer towards her and knew they would soon take her position. She would be ready, however, as she moved slowly to the edge of the boulder with her rifle up in preparation for the coming firefight. The HUD indicator on her visor told her that her shields were now recharged, it was now or never. She jumped out from behind her cover lining up her assault rifle with the first enemy closest to her.

There was a loud boom reverberating through the air suddenly, followed closely by a second one. The first alien's head snapped backwards then exploded the rest of its body fell back landing hard on the ground. The second alien was clutching its chest for a moment; if they had any resemblance to humans Ashley might have imagined its reaction was one of shock, but to her these things were just too alien to be sure. The thing slumped forward before crumbling to the ground. There was a large gaping hole in its back where a large caliber hyper mass accelerated round left its body. It took a moment more before Ashley registered the source of the sound she had heard; an Alliance issue sniper rifle.

Looking behind her she noticed two Alliance Navy marines walking over the lip of the hill towards her. There was a man and a woman, both wearing standard issue military combat armor. The woman however had several special markings on her armor, the red stripes plus the 'N7' stencil on her chest piece, which meant she was the superior officer. She was also holding a sniper rifle in her arms, no doubt the same rifle that had killed her attackers. She had only fired two shots from that rifle, one for each of the enemy units and nothing more. Impressive given the circumstances. Ashley let out a sigh of relief she didn't even know she was holding as she walked up to meet them.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. Are you the one in charge ma'am?" Ashley spoke quickly as if she was reporting for duty. She noticed what she thought was a glimmer of recognition in the other woman's face.

"Are you hurt Chief?" The woman asked after nodding to confirm her question. There was more concern in her voice then Ashley would have expected. This officer probably sensed how much strain the Chief had been under recently not that she would let that ever slow her down.

"A few scrapes and burns, nothing serious." Ashley replied trying to dismiss the other woman's concern. Ashley noted, observing the woman with black hair and blue eyes, that she wasn't wearing her helmet. It was then that she realized there was something about this woman that seemed familiar to her. Like she should know who she was but her mind was too focused on the combat zone surrounding her.

"We need to know what happened here Williams." The woman said. It was an order, not a request, albeit given in a polite tone.

"Oh man." Ashley sighed as she recalled just what had happened. "We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit." She looked back towards the dig sight, and the headquarters that lay just beyond, it seemed so long ago since she went out on patrol, but that was just this morning. "We tried to double back to the base, but we were cut down by an ambush. I've been fighting for my life ever since."

"What happened to the rest of your unit?" The man asked.

"I got separated from them trying to draw off the enemy forces." Ashley explained, a deep sadness was threatening to seep into her voice as she added, "I... I think I'm the only one left."

"Who did this? What kind of enemy are we dealing with?" the other woman commanded.

"I don't know ma'am." Ashley admitted, part of her didn't want to say what she was thinking, but this woman had given her an order, and she was a good soldier, "... I think they're Geth."

"The Geth haven't been outside the Veil in nearly 300 years." The man spoke up, understandably surprised by what she had said. "Why would they be here now?"

"I don't know." Ashley replied. It was the truth, however she suspected it might have something to do with ...

"What about the beacon they dug up?" The woman knew about that, so she clearly suspected the same thing. "You think that's what they were after?"

"Maybe. Not sure." Ashley told her. "The dig sight is just down this hill, I saw a lot of Geth nearby maybe we can learn more over there."

"Good, then that's where we need to head. You're coming with us Williams." The woman ordered.

"Ready and able ma'am." Ashley nodded adding in a quieter voice, "It's time for some payback."

"Staff Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko." The man introduced himself as the other woman began moving down the path, once she reached the body of one of the enemies she bent down to investigate it further. Kaiden simply nodded in her direction taking it upon himself to introduce her to Ashley, "And that there is Commander Sara Shepard. I assure you we're both glad to have you with us."

Ashley allowed herself to smile and responded with only a nod, but in her mind she found herself a bit off balanced by the information. Commander Sara Shepard. She had heard stories about her, scary stories about her bloodthirsty methods. She was nothing like that in person, as far as Ashley could tell, no surprise that the rumors might not match up with reality.

But part of Chief Williams hoped the rumors were true. If Commander Shepard was as ruthless as they say, then she more than anyone would be able to make those alien bastards pay for killing the rest of Ashley's unit. If that meant she would get killed as a result, as the stories like to suggest, that was fine with her. Ashley Williams wasn't afraid to die, especially if it could restore some of her family's honor in the process.

"We can exchange pleasantries later." Commander Shepard's strong voice jolted Ashley out of her thoughts, "We need to secure that beacon. Move out!"

Ashley didn't even think about it, as a good soldier she fell in line behind Shepard. All three of them had received the same marine training. As a result all three of them knew how to work together right away despite only just having met. Ashley was glad for this and now that she had reinforcements she was getting anxious to see when they would run into more of those Geth.

It didn't take long, they had barely made their way down the hill when the Commander held up her fist as signal to hold. She made another couple of hand signals the meaning of which got Ashley's heart racing. Enemy Spotted, Take Cover.

Ashley knelt down to one knee behind a stubby bolder keeping her new Commander covered. As she kept an eye out for the enemy Shepard moved forward slowly to another of the jutting rocks which she stayed crouched behind. Kaiden was behind another boulder farther back but hadn't seen anything yet. Once she noticed Shepard was clear in her new position Ashley quickly moved to the same spot previously occupied by the Commander. Once again she made sure to keep Shepard covered as she looked for the Enemy units she had spotted earlier.

For a second Ashley thought she saw movement but it was gone before she could be sure of anything. According to her HUD there were no enemies nearby, not in range of her suit's proximity sensors anyway. Commander Shepard, however, was looking through her sniper scope intently, perhaps preparing to fire. Barely had the thought crossed the Chief's mind when Shepard fired her rifle. In the distance, where Ashley had thought she saw movement, she now saw one of the Geth spinning, it's arm blown off, before crumbling to the ground.

The shot spurred the enemy into action, and suddenly there was a flurry of movement as the Geth's nearby allies moved to counterattack. Immediately Ashley opened fire with her assault rifle, shooting down the same line. Her suit's systems were now detecting four enemy units in range as the Geth moved up to meet their assault. Ashley stopped her shooting and ducked back behind cover just as some of the Geth weapons littered their laser marks across the rock face she was standing behind. Once she was sure her weapon was cool enough to fire without overheating she quickly popped back out to lay down more firepower.

Meanwhile Shepard had sat down behind cover, her sniper rifle extended besides her. _'She looks so calm'_ Ashley found herself thinking as she watched the Commander casually interacting with her Omni-tool. Despite wearing no helmet, Shepard didn't even flinch as Geth weaponry landed laser shots all around her.

Suddenly Shepard went into action, her moves were fast and precise, like a sudden strike of lightning. She threw an object into the middle of the advancing Geth, and without a break immediately began lining up her next shot. The tech mine exploded sending waves of high energy radiation and electricity through the enemy. Not even an eye blink later Shepard's rifle cried out loudly and the Geth trooper farthest away was throw backwards by the force of the sniper rifle's bullet. All Ashley could tell was the one corresponding red blip on her HUD went out before the body got out of range.

Two of the Geth closest to the Commander started charging forward then. Ashley noticed they were trying to overrun Shepard's position, as soon as that happened she would be in serious trouble. Ashley realized her assault rifle alone probably wasn't going to kill them in time, she needed something with a lot more stopping power. She was in the middle of switching to her shotgun when she heard Shepard yelling through the suit's com systems.

"Kaiden, now!" a heartbeat after the Commander gave the order Ashley saw a strange dark purple nebula of energy grow and surround one of the charging Geth. Suddenly the Geth was tossed sideways with tremendous force slamming into the other Geth trooper next to him, and sending them both flying to one side. Ashley could only blink as her mind tried put together the pieces of the puzzle she had just witnessed.

_'He's a biotic!'_ She quickly realized. She shook the revelation from her thoughts, forcing herself to focus on the battle at hand. The two Geth the Lieutenant had tossed were now lying prone not too far from her current position. As if to add insult to injury, Kaiden then tossed a tech mine after them that soon blasted away their remaining defenses leaving the Geth crippled.

Ashley was not about to let the opportunity go to waste. Throwing caution to the wind she ran from her cover, leaping over a large rock to land practically on top of the fallen Geth soldiers. She put the barrel of her shotgun over the head of the first Geth and fired, its body twitched violently for a brief moment as its head disintegrated from the blast, emitting a shrill electronic cry.

_'Good. I hope that hurt, you bastard.'_ Ashley thought. Without pausing she quickly cocked her shotgun again and brought it to bear over the next Geth trooper at her feet. The second blast produced the same satisfying, gruesome result. The loud shot of a sniper rifle told her the fight was now over. One look at her HUD confirmed this as her suit's sensors were no longer picking up any enemy units.

"Zero Enemy Contacts, Commander." Ashley reported looking back towards Shepard.

"Good work, Chief." Shepard said after she stood to face her. "I'm surprised with how well you managed to stay on top of the situation."

"Thank you ma'am." Ashley said, not bothering to hide her smile. She wasn't used to her superior officers complimenting her like this. No doubt the Commander didn't realize who she was yet, she might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Regardless, Commander Shepard was all business. She barely managed a nod in response before she began moving down the hill once again. She simply waved her hand forward, signaling the other two to fall in.

In no time at all the three of them had arrived at the dig site. To Ashley's surprise, however it had been evacuated. Specifically the beacon that had just this morning stood prominently as the centerpiece of the archeological site was now missing.

"The beacon was right here!" Ashley protested before anyone could ask the obvious question, "It must have been moved."

"By who? Our side, or the Geth?" Lieutenant Alenko asked.

"Hard to say," The Chief shook her head slightly, "Maybe we'll find out more if we investigate the camps. It's close, just up the ridge." Shepard looked in the direction she was pointing.

"Think anyone got out alive?" The Commander asked her.

"It's possible." Ashley said, though she wasn't feeling particularly hopeful.

"Either way we need to know what happened to the beacon." Shepard said as she turned to walk up the ridge. Then she stopped for a moment and held a hand up to her ear. She must be receiving a comm message from someone else nearby, Ashley realized. Whoever it was, they were using a private channel only Shepard could hear. The Commander didn't even say anything in return, she just clicked her comm twice to confirm.

"Who was that?" Ashley asked.

"Long story, let's go." Shepard was already moving once again.

Ashley just shrugged, and fell in behind the Commander. There was no point in pressing the matter, her job right now was to follow Shepard into battle, and she was going to make damn sure she did her job right. After all Ashley Williams was a good soldier.

* * *

**A/N: **Finally some action on Eden Prime. Clearly there more to do here however I decided to cut things off here for now and continue in a new chapter. I didn't want things getting too long again like last chapter.


	5. Eden Prime II

**_Eden Prime_**

* * *

Dr. Warren was kneeling, huddled in the corner of the prefab storage unit. It had been designed for secure storage so, thankfully, its walls were able to stand up to the aliens' weapons. They had even managed to lock the door to prevent any of them from getting in. Unfortunately it didn't prevent the sounds from entering.

She had heard the soldiers dying to save their lives. She had heard the strange electronic squawks and clicks that seemed to be the enemy's communications. She heard men screaming in terror and pain. And as if that wasn't bad enough, there was Manuel.

It was clear from this morning that he was having not having one of his better days of lucidity. This time however he had gone completely off his rockers. Perhaps understandable given the situation, but still he was hard to deal with even in the best of times. Right now he was only making things worse, the horrific sounds of battle and death from outside had faded and only Manuel's psychotic babbling was left behind. She could only hope the extra medicine would help out, but she'd have to wait to know for sure.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud alien screeching sound. This was soon followed by a terrible sound, like several electronic screams of pure agony. Then came the sounds of battle, loud gunfire seemed to overpower everything else. Before she even realized it, everything was suddenly quiet. Likely the last remnants of the marines stationed here being cut down once again.

As she imagined the worst she heard something else; footsteps, and they were coming closer. They quickly stopped just on the other side of the door. To her horror she heard them trying to access the security lock to the unit. They were trying to open the door, no doubt to finish them off finally.

Dr. Warren nearly had a heart attack when the door opened, but to her eternal relief what came into the shed was not one of those machine-like aliens. Instead it was a tall woman in an Alliance Navy armored suit.

"Humans!" Dr. Warren cried out, finally able to breathe again. "Thank the Maker!"

"Hurry!" Manuel spoke up, rather than finding relief it seemed the presence of a human soldier had only agitated him further, "Close the door! Before they come back!"

"Calm down, it's OK." The woman said trying to reassure them both, "You're both safe for now."

"No one is safe!" Manuel cried out, as if the idea of being safe was absurd to him, "The age of humanity is ended! Soon only ruin and corpses will remain!" The woman just gave him a weird look, arching a single eyebrow in his direction.

"Ignore him." Dr. Warren said, "He's been under a lot of stress. I'm sorry I don't know what to call you."

"I'm Commander Shepard." She said as two more armored humans walked in. Unlike this Shepard they still wore their helmets. One was a man, also in a generic Alliance Navy armored suit, this one didn't have any special markings though. The other was a woman in a white armored suit that looked a bit familiar. Her armor was much bigger and heavier then the Commander's, which was in turn only slightly bigger and heavier then the light armor the man was wearing.

"You're Dr. Warren." the woman in the white armor stated, confirming her suspicions that she had been part of the unit assigned to them. "You're the scientist in charge of the excavation."

"Yes," Dr. Warren nodded, "And this is my assistant Manuel."

"The armies of the Apocalypse are coming, they will rain down across the galaxy."

"What's his problem?" Commander Shepard asked belligerently, she clearly didn't seem like she had much patience left for Manuel's hysteria.

"Manuel has a brilliant mind," Dr. Warren tried to explain, "But he's always been unstable. Genius and madness are often simply two sides of the same coin."

"I'm guessing the coin came up 'madness', didn't it?" Shepard deadpanned.

"He's just under a lot of stress right now." Dr. Warren said as much to convince herself as anyone else, though Shepard remained unconvinced. Manuel wasn't helping his case much either.

"Is it madness to see the destruction?" He yelled, "To know that there is no escape? No Hope?"

"Yeah. It kinda is." Shepard shot back without missing a beat.

"I am not mad! I am the only sane one left!"

"Manuel please! This is not the time!" Dr. Warren interjected before things got worse. "I gave him an extra dose of his medicine. He should be fine in a little while."

"Fine." Shepard said with a wave of her hand, "We're looking for the Prothean beacon that was uncovered here. Do you know what happened to it?"

"We were told to prepare it for transfer off planet." Dr. Warren told her, "So we had it moved to the spaceport this morning."

"That's not far from here." The other woman spoke up, "I can take us there."

"What can you tell me about it?" Shepard looked back at Dr. Warren, "Any reason you can think of why these Geth would want it?"

"I'm not sure, but I can tell you it's an amazing piece of technology." Dr. Warren was only too happy to let her mind focus on the marvel that had brought her here, too focused in fact to pick up on the mention of geth. "Based on our initial finding I believe it to be part of a vast galaxy wide communications network. It's remarkably well preserved! Just imagine the wonders that might be locked away in its database! Of course we'd need to run a full set of diagnostics to know for sure. But this could well be the single greatest discovery ever uncovered by humanity!"

"We've uncovered the harbingers of our deaths!" Manuel wailed, ruining Dr. Warren's moment. "We've awakened the beast! Unleashed the darkness!"

"Alright, that's it." Shepard said suddenly, she looked towards Manuel with a sinister smile, "Say goodnight, Manuel." She took a few steps towards the assistant.

"You cannot silence me!" Manuel cried out, ironically stepping forward to meet Shepard unaware of her intentions, "My voice must be heard! My warning-"

His voice was instead cutoff rather abruptly by the sound of armored fist connecting with a human skull. Instantly Manuel fell to the ground unconscious, and blessedly quiet.

"Oh my god! What did you do?" Dr. Warren cried out in shock.

"I knocked him the fuck out." Shepard answered simply, "What did it look like I did?"

"That might have been a little extreme, Commander." The other man behind Shepard suggested, though he wasn't doing a good job of hiding his amusement. Even the other woman in the white armor was trying to suppress a laugh.

"You can't just go around whacking people in the head!" Dr. Warren said accusingly.

"Look, bad enough he was driving all of us nuts." Shepard explained unapologetically, "In his state it was only a matter of time before he did something stupid, or dangerous." Then in a calmer voice she added, "Besides, it's only a little bump on the head, let him sleep it off."

"I suppose you're right." Dr. Warren sighed, slightly guilty at how relieved she was that she no longer had to hear her assistant's hysteria. "His meds should kick in by the time he wakes up."

"You'll be safe in here." Shepard said assuringly. She then turned to face the man with her, "Lieutenant, Give her your side arm."

"Yes, Ma'am." the man said with a nod. He then stepped forward, taking off his pistol and presenting it to Dr. Warren who grabbed onto it uncertainly.

"Don't use that unless something not human comes in here, understand?" Shepard asked in voice that demanded authority.

"Yes, I understand." Dr. Warren nodded, still uncomfortable with the gun in her hand.

"Good, lock the door behind us when we leave." Shepard said. As she turned to walk out of the storage unit she called out to the other woman in the white armor, "Williams, take us to that spaceport."

"Aye, aye ma'am." The woman answered as all three of them disappeared beyond the door.

As soon as the door closed, Dr. Warren moved forward and reset the lock once more. Once she was secured she sat down and allowed herself to relax for the first time all day. She only hoped the next people to walk in here would prove to be less confrontational.

* * *

_Saren!_

_Nihlus._

_This isn't your mission, Saren. What are you doing here?_

_The Council thought you could use some help with this one._

_I wasn't expecting to find the Geth here. The situation's bad._

_Don't worry. I have it under control._

* * *

Sara heard the gunshot and quickly glanced back at the two soldiers with her. Both Kaiden and Ashley had heard the shot as well. She could tell it was close so she took lead to investigate in case they ran into anything unpleasant.

'Unpleasant' as it turned out, was a grossly inadequate understatement for what they found.

"What the hell is that?" Ashley cried out.

"What are you talking about?" Kaiden asked.

"Over there in the distance." Ashley exclaimed as she directed Kaiden.

In the far distance a massive object of clearly alien origin stood tall, dominating the distant landscape. But it became truly surprising when it began to move.

"It's a ship!" Kaiden shouted.

"My god, look at the size of that thing!"

Like the other two Shepard had no idea what she was looking at. Unlike the other two Shepard was certain she had seen it before; the distress call she had received back on the Normandy just before they arrived on Eden Prime. It was the same video distress transmission where she first saw Ashley, a video of the local marine unit trying to fight off what she now knew was a Geth assault. In the midst of the attack the camera managed to catch a glimpse of this ship, probably as it was landing. That was the last useful image they received before the transmission cut off entirely.

It was hard to judge from this distance, but Shepard knew this ship was huge. In fact it was probably the biggest ship she'd ever seen in her entire life. So big, in fact, that there was no way it could have made planetfall, not without crumbling under its own weight. What's more, for it to lift off like it was doing now it would require a massive amount of thrust, either that or an immensely powerful mass effect field. Probably both. Either way this mean the ship could easily generate more power than even the most powerful dreadnaughts are capable off at their peak.

Shepard was trying to figure out who could have built such a ship, letting the powerful sound of its takeoff wash over her. Suddenly she noticed a strange deep buzzing sound creep into the roar of the ship's ascent, quickly it built up until it developed into what felt like a white hot iron spike being driven into the back of her skull. The sound was so alien and so painful all she could do was hold her heads to hear ears, gritting her teeth, trying to push past the pain and stay on her feet.

In the end she couldn't quite manage that much, and was forced down to her knees. Then as quickly as it had begun the noise subsided and everything was back to normal, more or less. Looking up Sara saw the ship was long gone. Perhaps it was still in orbit, but clearly it was already beyond the planet's atmosphere. She turned back to her teammates to check on their status. They hadn't been able to stay on their knees like her. Instead both of them were lying on the ground groaning.

"Marines, Sound off!" Shepard yelled at them the concern still obvious in her hard voice.

"I'm Ok!" Ashley was the first to respond, "Ears are still ringing but I'll be fine."

"Ugh!" Kaiden apparently had not been so lucky. "That thing set off a huge migraine. But don't worry, I'll be fine in a minute."

Before she could respond Sara caught the sound of alien electronics working against grinding metal. An alien screeching sound they had heard before.

"We don't have a minute." Shepard yelled, "Enemies incoming!"

As before the strange alien screeching was a result of the geth devices - they decided to call them Dragon's Teeth - retracting their torturous spikes and releasing their once human prey. The shock was still fresh in all their minds when they realized the zombie like creatures they released, filled with all manner of geth electronics in place of what was once their internal organs, were humans that the geth had impaled using those Dragon's Teeth. That device slowly transformed them into the cybernetic Husks now before them. The defiled bodies of the humans the Geth tortured, which they had to kill again.

Quickly the three soldiers moved in unison taking up firing positions and raining down mass accelerated bullets onto the coming foes. As if to make matters worse, Shepard quickly noticed a number of the geth troopers in the distance heading towards them. Fortunately her keen eye also caught something else, a plasma fuel canister sitting in the path that they were passing through. The thought barely formed in her mind when she was pulling out her sniper rifle getting a line on that canister. She focused on her target, forcing herself to ignore the nearby Husks coming her way. She had to trust in her teammates to keep them off her as she continued to focus on her shot.

Her finger curled around the trigger and the rifle responded with the desired result. The plasma fuel canister was under extreme pressure in order to keep its contents in a liquid state for easy refueling. These contents were also very volatile even under ideal conditions. A simple crack through the casing was all that was required for some spectacular results.

The canister exploded violently. Those nearest to the canister were torn to shreds by the initial shockwave combined with the shrapnel of the metallic container, while those farther away were tossed with enough force to shatter on impact. Even at their location, far from the source of the blast, the three marines could feel the pressure wave. The husks nearby fell over as a result. If not for the large boulder that she had placed herself behind for the shot, Shepard knew she would be on the ground as well. With the remaining husks lying prone, the marines made short work of them.

"Think you can give us a warning the next time you try something like that Commander?" Kaiden asked, it was obvious the explosion had done his migraine no favors at all.

"And ruin the surprise?" Shepard smiled his way.

Soon the trio were once again making their way down the hill to the spaceport docks. It was some distance later when Sara noticed something off to one side that caught her attention.

"Hey look over there." Shepard said pointing to one side, "Another one of those locked storage units. We should check if this one has survivors in there as well." Her teammates quickly nodded before the three of them made their way to the new storage unit.

As before the door's security lock was set, and as before Shepard easily hacked through it in seconds. Briefly Sara recalled how she had been hacking locks like this since she was a kid back on Earth, stealing supplies for all the other kids she hung out with. Her infiltration training she had received after completing the N7 program, not to mention many of the covert operations thereafter, had only increased her skills even more. To her the door may as well have been unlocked.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We're coming out, we're human." The man belonging to the voice stepped out of the now open storage unit, he was wearing civilian clothing, not even part of the science crew. He had thinning hair and a ragged face which made him look tired, though the attack probably had more to do with that. He was followed close behind by a young woman and another man, like him they wore various civilian clothing.

He kept his hands up as he walked out to show that he was harmless. This motion bothered Shepard slightly, in her experience people who try too hard to prove they were harmless usually weren't, or at least they had something to hide.

"Is it safe? Are they gone?" The woman's questions were brimming with hysteria. They were just civilians, Sara realized, and had no idea how to handle the situation.

"It's safe, and they're gone." Shepard said reassuringly, "You can relax now. Why don't you tell me who you are and what happened here?"

"My name's Cole, this is Blake and Maddie. We're just simple farmers." The same man had apparently designated himself the leader of the trio, "We were down on the docks when the attack hit, so we ran up here and hid in this storage unit."

"Did you see anything during the attack that might explain this?" Shepard asked.

"We saw that ship they came with, it was huge." Cole said. "We made a break for the shed almost as soon as we saw it."

"Tell him about the noise Cole!" Maddie pleaded, "That awful noise."

"That mothership was broadcasting some kind of signal as it decended." Cole explained, "Whatever it was, it sounded like the shriek of the damned."

"Yeah we noticed it earlier." Shepard told him absently rubbing her ear.

"Painful, isn't it?" Cole continued, "Made my brain feel like an overused pincushion, never heard anything like it in my life."

"We were told a beacon was brought to the spaceport, do you know if it's still there?" Shepard asked.

"We heard they dug something up nearby, something big." Cole told her, "But we had no idea what it was. I'm afraid we didn't see a thing though."

"We didn't even see who attacked us." Maddie cried, "We just heard people dying and we ran."

"Well you're fine now, the danger's passed." Sara tried to calm the woman down before looking back at Cole, "We should get going then."

"Hey Cole, maybe we should tell about-" The other man named Blake, who had been quiet this hold time fidgeting nervously, was now trying to whisper quietly to his friend, and was failing miserably.

"Geez Blake. You gotta learn when to shut up!" Cole yelled back at him. Shepard's earlier distrust of these people came back loud and clear.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Shepard wasn't really asking this time.

"It's nothing, really." Cole said unconfidently as he tried to wave away any implications.

"I don't like being lied to, Cole." Shepard took a step towards him, letting her gaze bore through the farmer.

"It's not what you think." Cole tired to explain, "Some of the men down on the docks were running a small time smuggling operation. I let them store some of their stuff here in exchange for a cut of the profits."

"You greedy son of a bitch." Shepard said menacingly, "You weren't running here to save your life, you came here to check your merchandise."

"It's not what you think." Cole pleaded, "We just knew this place was secure, and I figured there might be something we could use in here."

"Well" Shepard crossed her arms, still frowning, "Was there?"

"We found a pistol." Cole offered pulling the pistol in question from under his shirt, "Here take it, you might get more use out of it then us."

Shepard quickly inspected the pistol, a Stinger Mk. 2, brand new. It wasn't too impressive, but it was still better than the standard issue pistol she normally used. Without a second thought she handed it over to Kaiden. By the look on his face he seemed surprised she was giving him the pistol and not keeping it herself. He said nothing however, his migraine was clearly still bothering him so he preferred to remain quiet for now.

"Who's your contact at the docks?" Williams demanded, "The one you got this stuff from."

"I don't want to get him in trouble." Cole shook his head, "He's not a bad guy. Besides I'm not a snitch."

_'I don't have time for this shit.'_ Sara thought as she pulled out her own pistol and leveled it a short distance from Cole's face. "Would you rather be a snitch or a corpse?"

"Powell!" Cole confessed eagerly, "His name is Powell, that's all I know, I swear."

"Heh, no honor among thieves." Ashley smirked.

_'They're not thieves, they're just farmers.'_ Sara reminded herself, putting her gun away. She looked at Cole critically once again before speaking, "One last question Cole; Think long and hard before you lie to me again." The threat in her tone was obvious, "Are you sure all you found was one lousy pistol?"

"Um..." Cole floundered a bit under Shepard's intense gaze, "There was something more, I just remembered. They're right here in my pocket, must have forgotten them in there." His excuses clearly weren't helping as he reached into his pockets pulling out various items. "Here take them, please. That's everything, I promise." He nervously delivered the contents into Shepard's hands.

She looked them over briefly, they were standardized weapon mods. Nothing too unusual but definitely more powerful than any farmer would have use for. She grabbed a couple for herself and handed the rest to Ashley before looking back at the trio of smuggling farmers.

"Alright fine." Shepard told them, "We cleared the path behind us. Best thing for you three is to head up there to the scientist camp. You'll find another locked storage unit, there's more survivors there. Knock before you try to come in, let Dr. Warren know you're human so she doesn't shoot you. You'll be safer up there until things blow over."

"Got it, we'll head over there now." Cole said as he led the other two up the same path the three marines had just recently walked down.

"Come on, let's get going." Shepard said to her teammates while walking towards the docks once more.

They arrived at the docking area shortly afterwards. It was all a mess, signs of battle were everywhere with various supplies destroyed, thrown about, or on fire. However none of that mattered, there was only one thing that had caught Commander Shepard's attention.

"Commander look. It's Nihlus." Kaiden said as soon as he noticed the body. Sara walked up to the body slowly as Kaiden bent down to check on it. He need not have bothered, there was a large bullet hole in the back of the Turian's head, and a large pool of blood had already formed around him.

"A Turian!" Ashley said, understandably she wasn't expecting any alien, much less a Turian, to show up on Eden Prime. Even more so she wasn't expecting her new teammates to recognize him.

"You know him?" Ashley turned to ask the Commander, though it sounded more like an accusation.

Sara could only nod in silence. Her face showed no emotion but there was a full torrent of thoughts and emotions rolling around her mind. She was shocked that someone would even manage to take out a Spectre, even more shocked that she couldn't find any signs of a struggle which might explain it. The biggest shock, however, was when Sara realized how sad she was to see the Turian dead. Perhaps she was starting to warm up to the idea of becoming a Spectre, perhaps she was looking forward to it. Or perhaps there was something more.

_'First Jenkins and now Nihlus.'_ Sara thought to herself,_ 'Out of the original ground team already half of us are dead. And we still haven't completed the damn mission. This is fast becoming just like Torfan.'_ Despite how ridiculous it sounded, deep down she considered the Turian to be part of her team. And though she realized there was no possible way she could have prevented this, part of her felt bad she wasn't able to do something more to save the Spectre's life.

"He's a Spectre." Kaiden explained when it became obvious Shepard wasn't going to say anything. "He was with us on the Normandy. He was here to scout ahead of us. I guess he ran into an ambush instead."

_'Spectres don't get ambushed like this.'_ Shepard kept thinking, trying to put the pieces together, _'What the hell happened?'_

"Why the hell didn't you tell me about this before?" Ashley blurted out. Once she realized she might be getting out of line she added as apologetically as she could manage. "Ma'am?"

"He's a damn Spectre, Williams." Shepard shot back. "His job was to stay out of sight. The chances of you even seeing him until the end of the mission were less than zero. If anyone had seen him they would have mentioned it, there aren't a lot of heavily armed Turians on this enitre colony are there? Besides we had more important things to worry about."

"Sorry about that Chief." Kaiden said calmly trying to mediate between the two. "But the less people knew about him the better, all things considered."

Whatever response Ashley might have given was cut off when they heard some equipment falling over near their position.

"Something's moving. Over there behind those crates." Ashley called out. Before the Chief had finished her warning Shepard already had her pistol drawn pointing in the direction of the disturbance.

"Wait! Wait, Don't shoot!" A man yelled as he walk out from behind the crates in question, "I'm one of you, I'm human." He held his hands up and he looked nervously back and forth between the three of them. Considering Shepard had her pistol aimed at his face he had good reason to keep his hands up like that.

"Sneaking around like that nearly got you killed." Shepard accused him.

"I- I'm sorry, look I didn't know what to do, especially after everything I saw." The man managed to say.

"Who are you? Tell me what you saw." Shepard ordered the man as she let her gun drop to her side, very slowly.

"My name is Powell." He said, he nodded his head towards Nihlus's body as he continued, "I saw what happened to that Turian. The other one shot him."

_'Other one?'_ Shepard narrowed her eyes at Powell. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I was hiding behind the crates after the attack hit." Powell confessed, nervous under the strain of Shepard's scrutiny, "I saw your friend approach the other Turian. He called him Saren. I... I think they knew each other. Your friend, he called him Nihlus, and he seemed to relax. He let his guard down. Then Saren just killed him ... shot him right in the back."

Shepard couldn't believe what he was saying, but for now it was the only explanation that made sense. She put that thought away for the moment, there was still a mission to complete. "There was a Prothean beacon they sent down here. Did you see it?"

"It got moved to the spaceport this morning." Powell nodded. "That's where Saren went. I... I can't believe that was just this morning. Now they're all dead, they killed everyone, everyone. If I hadn't been hiding behind these crates, I'd be dead too."

"Why did they leave you alive?" Shepard asked suspiciously.

"How come no one else tried to hide behind these crates?" Alenko joined in.

"They... they didn't get the chance." Powell's voice was thick with selfish guilt. "I was already behind these crates when the attack hit." He probably didn't want to explain further but the constant glare from Shepard commanded him to continue. "I sometimes come back here during work ... to take a nap."

"Wait, so you survived the attack because you were **lazy**?" Lieutenant Alenko accused him.

"What was I supposed to do?" Powell responded in a pathetic plea, "I'm not a soldier like you, I don't even have a gun."

"Not so fast Powell." Ashley spoke up, "You're Cole's contact, from the smuggling operation, right?"

"What? No, I..." One look from Commander Shepard and it became obvious to Powell that they weren't going to buy his story. "Oh what does it matter now. I admit, we sometimes take supplies and smuggle them out for a little cash on the side."

"Ever smuggle out anything useful?" Shepard asked him, clearly disapproving.

"I took some grenades from the troop supplies," Powell admitted, "No one ever notices if a few of them go missing."

"You fucking bastard." Ashley yelled at him, "Here we are trying to protect your ass and all you can think of is how to profit from it."

"Look I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd need them." Powell pleaded, "Who would ever expect Eden Prime would be attacked? We're just a tiny farming colony, there's nothing worth attacking over."

"Obviously the Alliance thought there might be some risk." Kaiden said, "Otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to station troops here."

"Like I said, I'm sorry. Here take the grenades, you can have them, that's everything." Powell begged nervously as he laid out several standard issue grenades on the crate in front of him. From the way he was acting it was obvious to Shepard he was lying. She had dealt with plenty of people like him even before she left Earth. He was hiding something, probably some stash that he was hoping to make one final score with. Unfortunately for him, Shepard had no patience left for liars.

"Too many people died here for you to start jerking me around." As Shepard spoke she reached across the crate grabbing onto Powell's shirt and pulling him closer. With her other hand she brought up her pistol resting it just under Powell's chin so he could feel its barrel pointing straight up through his head.

"Ok ok!" Powell cried out, "There was something else, some kind of prototype. Supposed to be cutting edge technology. Here take it." He reached into his pocket pulling out a couple of unusual looking grenades which he set down next to the other ones he had. "That's all of it I swear. Please let me go."

Shepard said nothing, just continued to stare at him intently as she let him go causing Powell to stumble backwards while he tried to get away. Eventually Shepard turned her attention to the grenades in front of her. She handed out the standard grenades between the other two marine before she examined the prototype ones. High Explosive Grenades; that was bound to come in handy.

"We should get moving." Kaiden reminded everyone.

"You can still catch Saren if you hurry." Powell said, "Just take the cargo train at the end of the platform, it will take you right to him. I'm getting out of here while I still can. I need to get away, leave all of this behind."

As Powell walked away Shepard thought he might have been trying to atone for his actions. He clearly sounded remorseful over what he had done, or perhaps his only regret is he got caught. Either way Shepard didn't care. She didn't bother telling him about the other survivors either. Powell had made the choice to steal from the people sworn to protect him. As far as Shepard was concerned, he could fend for himself.

* * *

_'That selfish bastard.'_ Chief Williams was still angry at that dockworker and his smuggling ilk as the three of them walked down onto the cargo train platform. Unlike the others she wasn't quite willing to let go of the grudge just yet, not while she still had an internal rant to think about. _'Here we are dying at the hands of the geth so we can save his lazy ass and all he could care about was making some creds for himself at our expense. Fucking typical. Hell, after everything grandpa had to do to save civillian lives, just look how he was treated. Ungrateful motherf-'_

"Enemy contacts sighted." Shepard's yell instantly snapped Chief Williams out of her internal monologue as she forced herself to focus on the nearby threat. Before them stretched the length of the cargo train platform, at the far end was a small unit of geth soldiers moving slowly towards them.

Simultaneously all three of them took cover position just as the geth began to fire their own gun in their direction. Ashley quickly popped up from behind one of the metal dividers that ran along the length of the platform. She barely had her assault rifle lined up on one of the geth before she started firing several bursts.

She ducked down quickly and checked her teammates while waiting to make certain her rifle wouldn't overheat. Kaiden was just firing his new pistol down range, perhaps they were still too far for his biotics to be effective. Shepard, however, was calmly lining up her sniper rifle, ignoring the Geth weapon shots even as they streaked inches away from her uncovered head. She fired a shot, the loud rifle dominating the sounds of battle. Then without looking away from her rifle's sight, Shepard cycled the magazine and took another shot. After the second shot she ducked behind cover once again, probably to allow her rifle to cool down.

The Gunnery Chief's training signaled that it was her turn to move. Quickly Ashley ducked out of cover, this time poking out the side of the barricade. This way anyone waiting for her to pop up from the same location would not get their shot on her. She dropped a layer of bullets across the pathway forcing all of the geth to take cover. Shepard took the opportunity to move forward, reaching another divider farther up ahead before any geth tried to take another shot.

Safe behind her new cover Commander Shepard set her rifle next to her as she pulled out her pistol and started firing right away. Ashley picked up on the Commander's intentions and moved forward from cover close behind her. She darted across the platform and coming to rest behind another divider next to where Shepard had stopped. Ashley then stood to send out more suppression fire, allowing Kaiden to move up behind both of them.

Now that they had moved closer Kaiden was in range to use his abilities effectively. As soon as a nearby geth popped his flashlight head up from cover, Kaiden wasted no time in lifting up into the air, and well out into the open. Left completely vulnerable, Shepard and Ashely quickly filled it with holes from their respective weapons.

With their numbers reduced the remaining Geth became surprisingly cautious. They kept behind cover each one barely coming up to fire their weapon before ducking back down. Ashley couldn't get a good shot in, but she knew eventually they should be able to nail them. All they were doing now was slowing them down. That's when it dawned on her that perhaps that was precisely what they were trying to do. Probably keeping them busy while this Saren got away with the beacon.

"Alenko! Bunker Down. Williams! Charge Forward!" Shepard ordered through the comm. Chief Williams looked over to see the Commander holding her sniper rifle waiting on her. Ashley balked slightly at what she was asking. At this range charging forward would make her an easy target for the geth. And with her sniper rifle, Shepard wasn't going to be able to provide effective cover fire. So why was she ordering Kaiden to stay down?

Ashley figured that Shepard would have also realized the geth were just trying to slow them down. Now Shepard was ordering her to dive into the enemy. Was the Commander just sacrificing her to break the geth stalling tactic? It made sense given her reputation. Ashley quietly cursed to herself, not that she was surprised, in fact she had suspected something like this might happen the moment she joined up with the infamous Commander Sara Shepard. Why wouldn't the Commander sacrifice her after all, she wasn't even really part of her team. Ashley simply wished she could have had the option of a slightly more heroic death.

"Now Chief!" Shepard yelled at her.

"Aye Aye ma'am!" Williams yelled back, not hiding her anger with the situation. It didn't matter however, what she wanted wasn't what was important, what mattered was that she was a soldier and she had a job to do. With all the rage fueled intensity she could muster, the Chief charged forward, firing her gun indiscriminately. She had barely taken two steps when she saw the geth rising up from their cover points. All three of them aimed their guns at her and fired. Ashley knew she was wide open, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. One of them was enough to deplete her shield, easily allowing another to finish her off. There were three of them; even if she managed to take one out the other two were enough to kill her. At least Ashley would have the satisfaction of taking one down with her, or so she thought as she pointed her assault rifle at the nearest geth.

In that same instant, the now familiar boom of a sniper shot filled her ears, followed by a second shot, and surprisingly followed by a third, all in quick succession. Ashley could see the all three geth being ripped apart by the rifle rounds; two through the head, one through the body. The Chief came to a stop surrounded by dead geth and bits of their mechanical body parts. Behind her she could hear the tell tale alarm of an overheated weapon. Turning around Ashley saw Commander Shepard holding her sniper rifle away from her own face as it vented excess heat.

"Sorry for the bait job there Williams." Shepard was smiling at her, "But we really didn't have the time to waste."

Shepard wasn't trying to sacrifice her to the geth, Ashley realized, she had been using the Chief to lure the geth out of cover so she could take them out. The Commander had picked her simply because she was the best armored, and thus the best option for the job. Chief Williams looked at her suit's status displayed on her HUD. Her shields had been completely drained during her charge. If Shepard had not forced the third shot, forced her rifle to overheat, Ashley might have been gunned down by the last geth.

"No problem." Ashley smiled back. She wasn't angry anymore.

"Gotta say, I'm impressed." Shepard said as she walked up. "The way you charged in there so recklessly, I know I was asking a lot from you, but you did it very effectively."

"I aim to please, Commander." Ashley replied.

Shepard simply nodded, though clearly satisfied. She walked to the end of the cargo train to activate the controls there. In no time at all the three marines were riding down the length of the monorail system towards their target.

* * *

_The vile flesh continues its breathing. It deactivates us as we seek to end it. But we will endure. In service of the Reaper God we will continue our assault on the vile approaching flesh._

_The prophet of the Reaper approaches. He speaks and we listen._

"Set the charges, destroy the entire colony, leave no evidence we were ever here."

_Our task is set, let this organic blasphemy be purged._

_

* * *

_

By the time they reached the spaceport on the other end of the monorail Kaiden was feeling much better. His migraine had subsided and was now just another typical headache by comparison. A headache he could easily work through. Unfortunately his headache was about to be compounded as their rail car came to a stop at the opposing terminal. The three marines stepped off quickly, and that's when Kaiden spotted a large object which he quickly recognized.

"Demolition Charges!" Kaiden exclaimed, "The geth must have planted them." This bomb was powerful enough that there was no way they would be able to escape the blast radius. If there were more of them they would easily destroy the entire colony.

"Hurry! We need to shut them down!" Ashley cried out.

"You think?" Shepard yelled back sarcastically. Before the Chief could respond geth weapons fire littered the area. Looking up Kaiden could see a couple of the remaining geth were taking positions on a higher balcony shooting down at them. As if the demolition bombs weren't enough, now they had the enemy firing down on them from a height advantage.

"Alenko, I need the bomb disarmed yesterday!" Shepard ordered, Kaiden was already using his Omni-tool to decrypt the trigger device's security overrides. "Williams, stay on top of the Lieutenant and kill anything that tries to stop him."

"Aye, Aye ma'am." Williams said as she knelt next to Kaiden firing up on the geth above them.

"I'm moving ahead," Shepard said as she pulled out her pistol, "Catch up when you're done here." And just like that she was gone, taking off up the ramp and across the bridge. Kaiden could hear her pistol shots firing vigorously as she moved farther away across to the other side of the railway.

Kaiden concentrated on his training, moving quickly through the protocol layers of the bomb's internal systems until he finally located the proper override commands. In a few moments the bomb was deactivated and no longer a threat, he even locked the system so it couldn't be reactivated anytime soon.

"Alenko, I just finished deactivating another bomb up here." Shepard's voice rang through his comm system. "Are you done down there?"

_'Damn that was fast.'_ Kaiden thought to himself as he heard the Commander's pistol ringing once more, "We're finished down here ma'am."

"I'm reading two more matching energy signatures." Shepard said.

"Copy that." Kaiden said as he used his Omni-tool to scan for nearby energy signatures. Sure enough two more spikes with the same properties as the bomb he had just disarmed appeared on his readout. "Verify two more energy signatures, definitely got more of these."

"Ok, get your butts up here so we can deactivate them." Shepard said.

Kaiden and Ashley said nothing, simply nodding to each other before running up the ramp after their Commander. When they reached her the first thing Kaiden noticed was the Demolition Charge, also deactivated. The second thing he noticed were two dead geth laying just beyond where Shepard was taking cover. There were still plenty of other geth not far down the balcony, which unfortunately was also the direction of the other energy signatures.

Chief Williams wasted no time jumping into the fight, unloading with her assault rifle before ducking behind a nearby crate. Almost instinctually Kaiden brought up his own biotic barrier to augment his kinetic shields. He kept firing his pistol as he tried to calculate the biggest concentration of the enemy. Once he had a good guess he primed a tech grenade from his Omni-Tool. The moment it was ready he threw it where it would do the most harm to the enemy. He was rewarded soon enough as his Omni-tool read reduced energy fields across the board, meaning he had taken out their shields.

Shepard and Williams where quick to capitalize on his actions, quickly cutting down two geth between them. The three of them moved forward, pressing their advantage. Shepard tossed another tech mine of her own once they reached new cover points and the three of them easily took out two more geth. Kaiden quickly checked their surroundings and saw no more geth in the area. However the HUD on his suit was failing to register any valid scan; they were being jammed.

"No enemy contacts Commander," Kaiden began, "But our combat radar is being jammed, we still have hostiles in the area."

"I noticed." Shepard agreed. That didn't stop her from running up to the next bomb, making sure the area was clear. "Lieutenant, get started here, I'll head to the other one. Chief stay here in case I need you to cover my exit."

"You got it." Ashley nodded.

As before Kaiden was already working on disarming the demolition device. He managed to finish a bit quicker this time now that he knew where to look for the override protocols. Kaiden looked up about to check in with Commander Shepard when he saw a new threat. Another geth, this one contained red markings on its artificial body, had slipped out from behind its hiding space opposite some of the metal containers on the balcony. The geth was advancing not on their own position but farther up ahead where the other demolition charge must have been.

Somewhere in Kaiden's mind came the thought that this geth was about to get the drop on Commander Shepard, her life was in danger. There was no further thought beyond that, without even realizing it Kaiden thrust his arm out, activating several eezo nodes throughout his nervous system. In response a nearby metal crate launched through the air. It rocketed into the sneaking geth with enough force to generate a sickening crunching sound. The combined mess of mangled geth and metal crate tipped over the edge of the balcony and fell past the monorail tracks a fair distance away from them.

Kaiden blinked, he wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, why he reacted so strongly.

"Nice catch Alenko." Shepard's voice said through his comm.

"Thanks." Kaiden finally managed to speak. Looking down he noticed his scanners were all clear now. That last geth must have been the one jamming them. All hostiles in the nearby area were gone from his HUD, as well as all energy signatures attached to any nearby bombs.

"Looks like we're all clear, Commander." Alenko said, focusing on getting back to the task at hand.

"Roger that." Shepard confirmed as she walked up to them from the last bomb position, "Let's keep moving."

They didn't have to move far. As they reached the stairs leading to the primary spaceport platform Kaiden's HUD began to light up with enemy contacts. Several more geth troopers were covering the platform. A now familiar electronic screeching sound told them that they had taken the time to impale some of the port workers on their gruesome Dragon's Teeth. Soon a number of their Husks would be coming after them as well.

The marines took up defensive positions on the stairwell. Using the slight height advantage it provided they fired on any geth they could get visual contact on. However there was a surplus of storage crates around the platform providing the geth with plenty of cover. Already several new red blips appeared on his HUD, and Kaiden knew they could be easily overrun if they didn't do something.

As if reading his concern, Shepard suddenly pulled out one of the grenades she had picked up from the smuggler Powell earlier. Quickly and easily she tossed the grenade in a smooth arc ending in the rough center of the geth positions before looking back to supply her teammates with an appropriate warning. "Fire in the hole!"

The resulting explosion proved bigger than anyone had expected. The blast wave was determined to knock the marines to the ground, Kaiden barely managed to grip onto the stair's railing to prevent himself from falling. Commander Shepard didn't have the option. As she was standing in front of Lieutenant Alenko when she threw the granade the Commander was tossed back into Kaiden.

Instinctually Kaiden wrapped his free arm around the Commander's waist as she slammed into him, preventing her from falling to the ground. As the explosive force subsided, Kaiden forced the air back into his lungs, inadvertently catching a sweet fragrance in the air.

_'My, her hair smells nice.'_ Kaiden found the thought popping into his mind before he realized it. Surprised by what he was thinking the Lieutenant quickly let go of Commander Shepard.

"Sorry ma'am." Kaiden said as professionally as he could manage.

"Don't be." Shepard smiled at him. "Once again that was a nice catch."

Kaiden shrugged it off, forcing himself to get back to business once again. Checking his sensor data he noticed most of the enemy contacts had disappeared.

"Damn!" Chief Williams was laughing off the effects of the explosion as she got to her feet, "When they say High Explosives they don't mess around."

As it turned out only a few husks remained after the explosion, and they were easily dealt with after that. As they stepped onto the platform they noticed container crates and geth parts where thrown about everywhere. More importantly however was a tall glowing monolithic object on the far side of the platform that had clearly not been built by the locals.

"There it is!" Chief Williams said excitedly, "That's the beacon."

"Finally," Commander Shepard said, "Both of you secure the area, make damn sure the site is safe before we do anything else."

As Ashley took off to check one side of the platform Kaiden made his way in the opposite direction. His scanners weren't picking up anything even remotely interesting other then the beacon itself. It quickly became very clear there was nothing left of the geth nearby.

As he made his way back he noticed Commander Shepard standing on the edge of the platform overlooking the scene beyond the railing he was leaning on. As he approached her he looked over the railing and immediately noticed what had captivated the Commander's attention. A large swath of land beyond the platform was devastated, left barren with sill glowing streaks of melted rock and charred earth. The area of destruction was massive, stretching out hundreds of meters, even across to a secondary monorail track which had an entire section sheared off as a result of what caused this. As far as Kaiden knew there was only one possible cause to this level of destruction.

"This must be where their mothership landed." He said stoically remembering the massive ship they saw launching into space, the one that made that horrible, migraine inducing noise.

"My god." Ashley spoke up as she walked up on the other side, "Looks like they set off a bomb here."

"Well there's nothing we can do about it now." Shepard said as she turned back towards the beacon. "What's our status?"

"We're all clear Commander." Kaiden said as both he and Ashley followed Shepard to the middle of the platform, "No more hostiles left to bother us."

"Good, about time we got out of here then." Shepard said as she looked at the beacon. She then turned around as she linked up her comms to the Normandy still in orbit. "Shepard to Normandy, We have the beacon secured. Requesting pickup."

As Shepard made the arrangements with the Normandy Kaiden took a closer look at the beacon. This was the first time he had laid eyes on it and he found himself a bit in awe. The beacon was tens of thousands of years old but it was nonetheless glowing and pulsing with its own strange power. Even after eons the beacon was still active.

"This is amazing." Kaiden thought out loud, "Actual working Prothean technology."

"Huh, it wasn't doing anything like that before." Ashley shrugged. The Chief was a grunt, not a techie, so it didn't surprise Kaiden that she quickly lost interest and walked back towards Shepard.

Kaiden however grew only more curious, approaching it carefully to see what he could discover from a closer inspection. For a moment he thought there might be some sort of pattern to the pulses the beacon was sending out. As he took another step, however, there was a sudden, and much larger pulse emanating from the beacon. The entire nature of the energy output from the beacon changed dramatically in an instant. The strange glow increased and a new energy field grew out of the beacon. Kaiden's biotic talents recognized the mass effect field it was generating, a field which was now pulling him in closer to the beacon. Kaiden tried to step away to force himself out of the field pulling him in but no matter how he struggled he couldn't escape the force pulling him towards the beacon.

Suddenly Kaiden felt a pair of agile arms wrap themselves around him tightly. Then with surprising strength he felt himself hurled out of the mass effect field. Free of its grasp the Lieutenant sailed through the air briefly before landing flat a safe distance behind. He looked up and realized, to his horror, that it had been Commander Shepard who had rescued him, and in doing so she had now taken his place at the beacon's mercy. Suddenly the beacon lifted the Commander into the air holding her there, for what purpose Kaiden could not fathom. Without thinking he surged forward, determined to get his Commander out of there. This time, however, Ashley held him back.

"No! Don't touch her!" the Chief warned, "It's too dangerous."

Torturously Kaiden could only watch as Shepard began to shudder from the effects of whatever the beacon was doing to her. It was almost like she was in the middle of a waking nightmare, like the demonic possessions of ancient myths. Then it all came crashing to a sudden end when the beacon exploded, flinging the Commander's body backwards.

Finally free of Ashley's grasp, Kaiden surged forward to Shepard's side. She was unconscious, but still shuddering, like she was still stuck in some nightmare. He immediately began checking vitals, looking for injuries and signs of potential trauma. Silently he begged her to stay alive, to be alright. He barely even registered Ashley's voice as she called for an emergency medical evac.

He was so focused on the Commander's health he didn't even notice the smoking ruin that was once the Prothean beacon.

* * *

**A/N:** Wow this one went very long. That was not my intention but I really liked the way this chapter came out. I'm glad so many of you are enjoying the story so far and hopefully this installment doesn't overdo it for you guys. Hopefully you'll all have as much fun reading it as I had writing it. Enjoy!


	6. Normandy I

_**Normandy**_

* * *

_**The death of billions whispered in her ears. A bloody orange covered everything she saw.**_

_**Those damn Terminus clan thugs were killing them. Everywhere she turned in Torfan's underground base she saw them coming for her, every step she took another marine in her unit was cut down by the enemy. She tried to hide, **why was she hiding?** she tried to run, **why was she running?** only to turn around and see the people she cared about dead before her. She looked up and saw the Batarian leader of Torfan standing over the body of its latest victim. Its four camera lenses it used for eyes glared at her with a malevolent red glow. That was no batarian, it was a synthetic, and it was killing them all. It stood to its full height revealing all of its mechanical horror, this robotic terror, this synthetic killer, it was bathing the in orange blood of its victims, and it was coming for her.**_

_Orange blood? Sara knew there was something wrong. She couldn't focus properly but she knew this wasn't right._

_**That's what happens in a gang war. The new gang was moving in on their turf, and taking it over violently. Sara looked back at the kids, some of the other younger members of the Reds, she knew she had to protect them from the other gang. But it was impossible. The synthetic gang members crashed into their home, their bladed mechanical hands and superior weaponry tore through all of her fellow gangmates in seconds. They were insatiable, they were unstoppable, they were Reapers.**_

_**In unison the Reaper gang surrounded Sara, and now she too would die.**_

_It wasn't real, of course, she realized this long before her consciousness clawed its way to the surface. Slowly, painfully, she began to take notice of the world around her. Light slowly began to stream into her vision as she risked opening her eyes._

"Doctor, Doctor Chakwas? I think she's waking up now."

_It was a familiar voice, it felt oddly warm and refreshing to her._

* * *

Captain David Anderson was absently rubbing his temples as he finished up his review of the Eden Prime reports. He hated paperwork, but at times like these there was literally nothing else he could do. He was frustrated by the disparity of what he had to deal with at times.

Jenkins was young, eager, and a skilled soldier. His only failure was his inexperience, but his great attitude and friendly personality had quickly warmed him to the whole crew. Everyone missed him, everyone felt his loss. But the only thing the Alliance bureaucrats wanted was a simple one page notice of his death on the field. Even his death certificate would be handled by the local colony authority on Eden Prime where he would be buried.

By contrast the death of a Spectre required entire volumes of paperwork to be filled out signed, double checked, and verified. Most of it was just senseless Alliance politics, no one wanted to be held responsible for the death of a Spectre. He could understand their scrutiny perhaps, but he didn't like all the pointless work it generated.

There was a simple chirp from his console that told him he had a new message waiting. Grateful for any reason to avoid the paperwork Anderson immediately checked the message. It was from Dr. Chakwas. He had asked her to inform him the second Commander Shepard woke up. The Captain barely skimmed the message before he stood and made his way to the med bay.

"I'll need to add this to my report, there's - Oh Captain Anderson." Dr. Chakwas interrupted herself once she noticed him walking in. Lieutenant Alenko was standing next to her. He had stayed by the Commander's side perhaps a bit more then he should have, but given what he read on the report, Anderson figured he was justified.

As for Commander Shepard, she had already pulled herself out of the bed but remained leaning against it for the moment. Anderson recalled how much she hated staying under medical treatment any longer then she absolutely had to.

"How's our XO holding up?" Anderson asked, he was genuinely concerned but his tone remained professional.

"Well all her vitals look normal." Dr. Chakwas told him, "I'd say the Commander's going to be fine."

"Good." he nodded, "I need to speak with the commander - in private." Captain Anderson had the ability to drop hints with all the subtlety of a lead brick, tied to a sledgehammer.

"Aye, Aye, Captain." Alenko said with a quick salute, "I'll be in the mess if you need anything." Both he and Dr. Chakwas politely made their way out of the med bay.

"Sounds like you took quite a beating out there Commander." Anderson said to Shepard once the two of them were left alone, "How are you holding up?"

"Intel completely dropped the ball on this one Captain," Shepard got about as close as she could to outright yelling at a superior officer. She was understandably upset. Even as the Commander lashed out, Anderson knew she must have been holding back as it was. "We had no idea what we were dealing with and that's why things went to hell. We practically walked right into a Geth ambush!"

"The Geth haven't been past the Veil in over two centuries, there was no way any of us could have known what you'd run into." Anderson explained in his strong authoritative tone. "You saw the same distress call I did, you knew things were bad the moment you touched down on solid ground."

"I ... I know Captain," Sara deflated, a saddened sigh leaving her body, "I just. I don't like soldiers dying under my command."

Anderson's face softened as he heard Shepard's confession. Jenkin's death probably brought back some memories she'd rather not remember.

"I know, no one does." Captain Anderson told her in an understanding, almost fatherly tone, "But it's not your fault. I don't like losing Jenkins any more then you do. Just don't forget you still managed to save an entire colony down there. You did good Shepard, no matter what you might think."

"That's easy for you to say." Shepard argued, "No one's calling you a Butcher, no one's scared of your reputation. It's bad enough people already think I enjoy leading men to their deaths."

"You're being too hard on yourself, Commander. No one really thinks that." Anderson said. He let the silence hang for a brief moment before taking a step forward. "I know what you've been through, Shepard, so let me be perfectly clear. You did the right thing on Torfan, and you did the right thing on Eden Prime. It's obvious you don't enjoy losing your men, no matter what the circumstances. Frankly if I thought that for a second you wouldn't be standing here right now. Perhaps it's true one reason why you're here is because you're willing and able to make the tough decisions. But the real reason I chose you is because I know that you won't sacrifice a damn thing, especially the lives of your men, unless you felt you absolutely had to." Anderson was pacing slowly across the med bay now. "I wish I could say Jenkins's death could have been avoided, but if you were down there then I know that there's nothing any of us could have done differently to save him."

"Thanks, means a lot to hear you say that." Sara smiled weakly.

"We're a lot alike you and I. We both know that sometimes you have to get dirty to get the job done, and we're both too damn stubborn to be anything but honest about it." Anderson smiled at her before putting a comforting hand on the Commander's shoulder. "You're a damn hero in my book, Shepard, everyone down on that colony owes you their lives."

"Well enough chit chat." Shepard shook her head, "You said you wanted to speak to me Captain?" She was determined to get back to business. Anderson, likewise, was more than willing to oblige her.

"I won't lie to you Shepard, things look bad." Anderson told her bluntly, "Nihlus is dead and the beacon is destroyed, the Council is going to want answers."

"The Council can kiss my ass." It seemed it didn't take much to get the old Shepard back. "I'm not gonna let them pin this on me when I did nothing wrong."

"I'll stand by your report, Shepard, but we need the Council on this one." Anderson explained, "Saren's a Spectre, one of the best, a living legend. But if he's working with the Geth then he's gone rogue. A rogue Spectre is trouble. Saren's a serious threat, worse yet he hates Humans."

"I'm sure the feeling's mutual." Commander Shepard sneered, "But he wasn't on Eden Prime just because he hates humans, he was after the beacon. Killing colonists was just a perk."

"I suppose you're right, but that makes Saren no less dangerous." Captain Anderson nodded, "Whatever was on that beacon could be used against us if we don't stop him. You interacted with the beacon just before it exploded, did you see anything that might have helped?"

"I don't know. I had some sort of ... vision." She didn't sound too confident about this, as if she wasn't yet sure how to describe what she saw. Anderson merely stood there waiting patiently for her, it was a subdued way to let the Commander know that no matter how crazy she might think it was, he wanted to hear every detail. Shepard caught on quickly, and stated simply, "I saw synthetics, Geth maybe, killing organics."

"We need to inform the Council about this." Anderson said finally.

"What are we going to tell them, I had a bad dream?" Shepard's voice was filled with sarcasm.

"We don't know what was on that beacon." Anderson told her, "Could be anything, even weapon schematics. Whatever it was, Saren's got it. The sooner we know what he's after the better we can deal with the threat he poses. I know how he operates. No remorse. No conscience. He gets the job done, but couldn't care less who he kills or hurts along the way."

"So he's everything people think I am." Shepard frowned at him. Captain Anderson wondered how much the Commander suspected at that point, but now was not the time to go into those details.

"He's much worse, trust me." Anderson simply responded.

"Then I'll find some way to take him down." Shepard wasn't making idle threats here, the Captain knew this. She had every intention to follow through with what she said.

"It's not that simple." Anderson softly shook his head, "As a Spectre he can do anything, go anywhere, we're never going to catch him without the support of the Council."

"So what do you suggest?" Shepard crossed her arms.

"If we can convince the Council of the danger Saren presents," Anderson buried his fist in his other palm focusing his thoughts, "If we can prove to them Saren's gone rogue, then they'll revoke his Spectre status. That's our only shot to get him."

"Whatever you say sir." Shepard nodded.

"I've already informed the Ambassador about our situation." Anderson explained, "He'll want to setup a meeting with the Council as soon as we arrive. Get some rest. We'll be meeting with him as soon as we land on the Citadel. In fact we should be arriving soon, you can go tell Joker to bring us into dock as soon as we arrive."

"Yes, sir." Shepard said.

Captain Anderson nodded once at her before turning around and making his way back to his office. At least as far as Shepard was concerned he was fairly certain she'd be alright. In all the years Anderson has known her, Sara Shepard was never one to back down from anything, once she made up her mind about something she would not stop until she completed it. If anyone could take down Saren it was her.

Captain Anderson had hoped that he would have been the one to do it. He thought about how he should have killed Saren when he had the chance, but it didn't happen. There was no point dwelling on it, however, that was the past and there was nothing he could do to change it. All he could do now was help Shepard accomplish what he couldn't.

* * *

Sara made her way out of the med bay not long after. In truth she still felt tired but she had already slept enough since she got mind zapped by that beacon. She was also hungry and that was something she could fix in the mess hall. She didn't expect to see Kaiden as soon as she stepped out of the med bay, but she wasn't surprised either.

"I'm glad you're doing ok, Commander." Alenko said as Shepard approached. There was a genuine concern in his voice that made Sara feel just a bit warmer. She told herself to ignore it, however. He was just feeling guilty still, and as far as Shepard was concerned the sooner everyone got back to their job the better.

"I'm not gonna let some stupid ancient alien psychic TV antenna take me down." Sara smiled before she could even stop herself.

"I wouldn't think you would." Kaiden smiled in return.

"You mind if I grab a snack?" Shepard asked as she passed the Lieutenant on the way to the food processors, "Apparently getting a Prothean mind fuck builds an appetite."

"Don't mind at all." Kaiden said, "So long as you don't mind if I join you, ma'am." He was keeping things professional at least.

Shepard still felt that warm sensation when he spoke but again chose to ignore it. Well it wasn't like it mattered anyway, she was just enjoying a snack with a fellow officer after all, just a particularly cute one. She quickly shook the thought from her mind. There were plenty of cute guys in the Alliance, no sense delving on pointless thoughts like that just cause one of them happens to be sitting next to you. Clearly she was still recovering from the effects of the beacon, what other explanation could there be for the warm sensation she had felt.

The selection available from the ship's culinary systems were, as usual, piss poor. In the end she went with an energy bar. It was supposed to be 'Honey Peanut' flavored but really tasted more like slightly sweeter then normal cardboard. As she sat down Sara noticed something interesting, or more specifically someone.

"Is that Chief Williams?" Shepard leaned a bit towards Kaiden as she asked him.

"Yup, that's her." The Lieutenant replied as he picked up a couple energy bars for himself.

"What's she doing here? I thought she was stationed back on Eden Prime." Shepard's inquiry continued.

"The Captain had her reassigned to the Normandy." Alenko explained, "Figured we could use a soldier like her." He went quiet, letting the full meaning of the Chief's arrival speak for itself rather than mention Jenkins's death.

"I hear ya." Shepard acknowledged sadly, "It's a good call. She's a great soldier, survived where everyone else got killed and still came back to kick ass when it counted."

"I agree completely." Kadien said, "Which is why I recommended she come on board to the Captain."

"Did you now?" Shepard asked suggestively, not that it mattered she reminded herself.

"Purely a professional recommendation, Commander." Alenko said dismissively. She wasn't sure why, but Kaiden's dismissal made Shepard feel a little better.

"Well she's sticking out like a sore thumb out there on her own." Shepard said. Without hesitating she leaned over past the table's edge so she could yell towards Chief Williams in the corner, "Hey Chief, you're wallflower impersonation sucks. Why don't you come join us instead?"

At first Ashley was temporarily shocked when the Commander yelled at her, but she was quickly overcome with relief as she made her way to the other two officers.

"Thanks for the invite, Commander." Ashley said smiling as she sat down across from Shepard. "To be honest I was feeling pretty out of place on a new ship."

"Don't worry Chief, I'm sure you'll fit in." Kaiden said.

"Thanks LT." Ashley said, then added, "Um you don't mind if I call you LT do you?"

"Not at all." Kadien assured her, "Better that then having to call you Gunnery Chief all the time."

"Appreciate it." Ashley smiled, then added sadly, "Honestly I was worried that the people here wouldn't accept me, you know after what happened to Jenkins."

"He'll be missed," Shepard nodded. "He was a new kid. I mean we were all new, this was a freshly commissioned ship, but Jenkins was barely out of the Academy."

"He's the Normandy's first crew loss." Kaiden said thoughtfully, "So naturally everyone on the ship is affected by it."

"Part of me feels guilty." Ashley admitted, "I mean if he hadn't died I probably wouldn't even be here."

"Now stop right there." Shepard told her, "You did great down there, and you deserve to be here. You have every reason to mourn after what happened to your unit. But that's no reason for you to start that survivor's guilt bullshit."

"I suppose you're right, Commander." Ashley said.

"Things were rough down there." Kaiden added, "But we all got through it."

"We sure did." Ashley said, "Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful you all came down there when you did. I just wish..."

"You wish we had arrived sooner." Shepard finished for her, "To save the rest of your unit."

"Yeah." Ashley nodded, "But it's not just my unit. We're marines, seeing soldiers die is part of our job. But you never get used to seeing civilians killed."

"We all wish we could have done more to save the people down there." Kaiden said, "But let's face it, we were the only ship in the area, and we got there as soon as we possibly could. I don't think there's anything anyone could have done better given the circumstances."

"Heh, You know the Captain told me the exact same thing." Shepard said.

"I guess the skipper's right." Ashley smiled weakly

"Damn straight." Shepard said enthusiastically, "Maybe we didn't know Jenkins for long, but I know the last thing he'd want would be for us to be moping around like this. That's why we're gonna pick ourselves up, find this Saren prick, and kick his ass until he's tasting boot."

"I like the sound of that!" Ashley cheered.

"Well I'm glad to see you're all feeling better." Dr. Chakwas with only a slight hint of a motherly tone.

"Doing just fine, Doc." Shepard told her as she bit into her energy bar once more.

"I can see that your appetite is healthy at least." Chakwas smiled at the Commander, she then turned towards Alenko and politely asked him, "And how are you feeling Lieutenant? Is everything normal?"

"Just the usual, doctor." Kaiden said, "The pills you gave me are working just fine though, don't worry about me."

"Very well, please inform me if you experience any complications." Dr. Chakwas said, she then looked over the other marines gathered, coming to rest on Shepard, as she added, "And that goes for you two as well. Especially you, Commander, I know how much you like to avoid the med bay whenever possible."

"I'll be alright, Doc." Shepard smiled at her, "I promise to let you know if any weird alien shit pops out of my head."

"Lovely. Well see that you do." With a polite bow Dr. Chakwas made her way back to the med bay.

"So LT." Ashley began once the three were left alone again, "You mind sharing what that was about, or is it personal?"

"No, I don't mind." Alenko said, "There's really not much to it, I'm one of those not-so-lucky few that are still using the L2 biotic implants."

"L2?" Shepard asked.

"Yeah, most biotics today are using the new L3's." Kaiden explained, "They tend to spike at lower amplitudes then the L2's. That makes them less powerful but they have none of the side effects." He almost spat out the last two words.

"What sort of side effects?" Shepard pressed him.

"The bad sort," Kaiden said gravely, "There's all sorts of terrible mental problems that you can run into when the L2's go wrong. Put it this way, all I get is an occasional horrible migraine, especially after prolonged use. And that means I'm one of the lucky ones."

"Wow, that kinda sucks." Ashley sympathized.

"I'm used to it." Kaiden shrugged, "I've learned to manage them when they come. I figure it's a small price to pay to help put guys like Saren away."

"Gotta agree with you there, Alenko." Shepard nodded as she finished the last bite of her energy bar. Realizing she was still hungry she decided to get another one from the food processor behind her.

"So is that why we're heading to the Citadel, Commander?" Kaiden asked.

Shepard nodded as she returned to her seat with a new energy bar to bite into, "The Captain wants us to talk to Ambassador Udina, he's planning to meet with the Council to let them know what happened."

"Makes sense, they probably want to know that Saren's not working for them anymore." Kaiden said.

"We're not going to have to testify in front of the Council or anything will we?" Ashley asked.

"We shouldn't have to." Kaiden replied, "We gave them our reports, all we can do now is trust Ambassador Udina will get the message across."

"Trust a polititian?" Ashley clearly didn't think highly of the vocation, "No offence but I'd rather not."

"I guess not." Kaiden smirked slightly, "Still you gotta admit, we got one hell of a shakedown cruise on our hands. We end up with one Spectre killing another and in the end we still didn't recover a working beacon. Knowing the Council they may want to use this as leverage to impose more sanctions on the Alliance."

"You sure seem to have an ear to the ground, Lieutenant." Shepard observed out loud. "You a career man?"

"Yeah." Kaiden nodded, "Biotics aren't restricted but we sure are regulated. Might as well get a paycheck out of it. Besides it made my father proud to see me serve."

"Yeah, I'm here 'cause of my family too." Ashley said, for some reason Shepard got the sense that she was choosing her words carefully, "We've got quite the tradition of service. I grew up as just another navy brat, so I always knew what I was gonna be."

"What about you Commander?" Kaiden asked her, "Are you also here because of your family?"

"I don't have a family." Shepard said as a matter of fact. "I never even knew my parents."

"Oh. I'm sorry, ma'am." Kaiden was turning a deep shade of embarrassment. "I didn't mean ..."

"Relax Alenko." Shepard told him, "No one's treading into anything sensitive here. You're not gonna hurt my feelings talking about your family." Sara noticed that she was already nearly finished with her snack. With a shrug she took her final bite and stood up. "At any rate, we're gonna be docking with the Citadel real soon. I better head to the bridge and check in with Joker. You two should come, it's quite the sight."

* * *

**A/N:** This was a quick chapter for me to follow up from the last one, just laying some groundwork and having fun with some personal conversations. I wanted to do the whole flyin to the Citadel scene but there wasn't much point. I wouldn't really change anything from what you see and hear in the game and I doubt I could do it justice.


	7. Citadel: Council Chambers I

**_The Citadel: Council Chambers_**

* * *

"The Geth Attack is a matter of some concern." The Asari Councilor was talking. Her strong voice carried the entire weight of the Council's power with ease. Not that Shepard could care less.

_'Nice to know they have **some** concern for the death of human colonists'_ Shepard mentally sneered with her thoughts.

"But there is nothing to indicate Saren was involved in anyway." The Asari continued.

She stood with her teammates from Eden Prime, all three of them had changed into a simple, semi-formal uniform. In the thick political minefield that of the Council Chambers where they now stood, Sara imagined how much more comfortable she would have felt had she brought her sniper rifle with her instead of just her sidearm. She had little choice, however, they were in the middle of a Council Hearing, with Ambassador Udina and Captain Anderson pleading their case to remove Saren's Spectre status based on his traitorous actions, none of which the Council was buying at the moment.

"The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason." The Turian Councilor added dismissively.

"We have an eyewitness who saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood." Ambassador Udina insisted. To his credit he was working hard, and fighting harder, for every inch of humanity's position on the galactic political spectrum. Even so, Shepard knew the moment she met him that she was not going to like him, at all. Thus far she'd been proven right, but at least it seemed she wasn't alone.

"We've read the Eden Prime reports, Ambassador." This time the Salarian Councilor was speaking. Shepard wasn't sure whether he was trying to be sympathetic or downright patronizing. "The testimony of one traumatized dockworker is hardly compelling proof. Particularly one whom even your own people claim is a criminal."

Commander Shepard silently agreed with that logic, not that she liked it any better. In truth the whole process was just rubbing her the wrong way. From the moment they stepped onto the Citadel, Udina insisted they bring the information before the Council. He was practically ramming the charges against Saren down the Coincil's throat, making demands of them even before this trial began.

Shepard considered that they would need to gather more proof first, but both Captain Anderson and Ambasador Udina insisted that they bring the evidence they had to the Council as soon as possible. They wanted to deal with the threat of Saren as soon as possible, and they did not want to appear to be withholding anything from the Council. In the end Shepard agreed because she too wanted to deal with Saren as soon as possible. Unfortunately it became clear to her almost from the moment the Council meeting began that things weren't going to go well.

"I resent these accusations." Saren spoke but not in person. He had opted instead to appear at his own trial via hologram. In this case a large red hologram overlooking the entire proceedings. Pretentious bastard, even the Council was beneath him, both literally and figuratively from his holographic perch.

It was the first time Shepard had ever seen Saren before in her life, even if it wasn't in person. Still from that first impression she realized two very important things. For one he was clearly guilty, without any doubt. Not just in terms of the attack on Eden Prime, but of all the terrible things people say about him. To her, Saren was a man filled with hatred where his soul used to be. The other thing Shepard quickly realized was that she definitely hated the arrogant asshole.

"Nihlus was a fellow Spectre and a friend." Saren explained, much the same way a weasel tries to explain itself out of a rathole in Shepard's view. Clearly, however, she was not alone in that sentiment.

"That just let you catch him off guard." Anderson shot back with a belligerence that was most uncommon for the Captain.

"Ah, Captain Anderson." Saren spoke with a superior sense of disgust, "You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me." He turned his head as if to carefully observe the young Commander standing next to Anderson. "And this must be your protégé Commander Shepard, the one who let the beacon get destroyed."

_'I didn't "let" anything, you fucking bastard!'_ Shepard raged inside her thoughts, she would have yelled something suitably profane in the Spectre's direction, but something inside her told her there was a better way to handle things. With a knowing look she addressed the Spectre with the same smug tone he had used towards her, "Nice, first you manage to sneak your way into a top secret mission you weren't supposed to know about, and now you hide behind the council when we call you on it. You don't even have the nerve to show up in person."

"You presume too much, Shepard." Saren countered, he apparently hadn't expected this 'mere human' would be capable of matching wits with him. "If you knew anything about the Spectre's you'd realize as his mentor all of Nihlus's files passed on to me when he died, including the Eden Prime report. You'd also realize that I might have matters of galactic security to deal with that are more important than my presence at this charade."

"Or maybe I just realize that you're good at running away like any guilty man would." Shepard shot back smoothly. "You certainly seem way too eager to explain your innocence."

"How typical, you'd resort to flinging more accusation instead of hard proof." Saren said trying to deflect the conversation. His voice was brimming with disgust as he added, "But then what would you expect from a human."

"You can expect me to kill you next time we meet." Shepard narrowed her eyes, the gravity in her voice making her intentions perfectly clear.

"You need to learn your place, Shepard." Saren spat out. Shepard allowed herself a tiny smile in Saren's direction. He allowed his control to slip; she won this round. But he was good at masking his failures in rhetoric. "Your species is not ready to join the Council, you're not even ready to join the Spectres."

"He has no right to say that. That's not his decision." Ambassador Udina stepped in, angered both by Saren's comments and his lack of control on the situation.

"Shepard's admission into the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting." The Asari Councilor stated plainly. Shepard had to give her credit, the Asari, at least, was not only able to maintain control of the situation but also wanted to make sure everything was handled properly. She remained calm even as she made certain neither the Ambassador or the Spectre could maneuver any more control over the meeting then she allowed. Not that it would stop them from trying.

"This meeting has no purpose." Saren lashed out, apparently trying to leverage the Council, "The humans are wasting your time Councilor, and mine." Shepard found it amusing how his tone seemed to suggest that his own time was worth more than the Council's.

"Don't worry, Saren," Shepard patronized him, "You can't hide behind the Council forever."

"There is still one outstanding issue." Captain Anderson spoke up, "Commander Shepard's vision. It may have been triggered by the beacon."

_'Damn it. I was hoping he wouldn't bring it up.'_ Bad enough their flimsy eyewitness did them no favors. The last thing Shepard wanted was for her visions to come to the forefront at this stage of the game. She still wasn't comfortable talking to anyone about it as she doubted seriously that anyone would take them seriously, herself included.

Saren, in his opportunistic scoundrel ways, was all too quick to jump at the chance to ridicule further, "Are we allowing dreams into evidence now? How can I defend my innocence against this kind of testimony." If anything, he was far too quick to jump at the mention of the visions. Fortunately for him, others agreed with the point he had made.

"I agree." The Turian Councilor said with a smug sigh, "Our judgment must be based on facts and evidence, not wild imaginings and reckless speculation."

_'Wow, patronizing much?'_ Shepard wanted to say so much worse, but remained quiet. She knew the Councilor was right. She may have won a psychological victory over Saren here today, but that mattered little in the eyes of the Council. In terms of their primary objective they had lost this small battle almost as soon as it began.

"Do you have anything else to add Commander Shepard?" The Salarian Councilor said, perhaps sensing her frustrations.

"You've made your decision. I won't waste my breath." Shepard said flippantly as she shook her head. There was no point wasting any more time with this trial.

The Council members conferred for mere seconds. Like Shepard had suspected they had already made their decisions, and merely confirmed as such with each other. They didn't even need to do that, Shepard got the sense that they did so only so they did not appear like they were dismissing the humans out of hand.

"The Council has found no evidence of any connection between Saren and the Geth." The Asari Councilor said finally, "Ambassador, you petition to have him bared from the Spectres in denied."

"I'm glad to see justice was served." Saren added, he just had to get the last word in.

"This meeting is adjourned." The Asari Councilor said. Almost immediately all three Councilors turned and left their platform. Saren, or rather his hologram, simply went out, nothing more than a switch being hit.

The human contingent could only turn around and walk away from the platform where they pleaded their case. Udina stayed back for a moment in frustrated contemplation of the poor outcome of the meeting. It took a moment before he joined the other humans who had already stepped away.

"It was a mistake brining you into that hearing captain." Udina accused Anderson as he walked to them, "You and Saren have too much history, it made the Council question our motives."

"I know Saren," Anderson responded, "He's working with the geth for one reason: To exterminate the entire human race. Every colony we have is at risk, every world we control is in danger. Even earth isn't safe."

Normally Shepard would have thought the Captain was being a bit too alarmist. But something about Saren, seeing him more or less in person, convinced her that while the Captian might be overstating things he was not underestimating Saren's threat.

"I think you need to tell me about this history between you and Saren, sir." She told him decisively.

"I worked with him on a mission long ago." Captain Anderson explained, "Things went bad, real bad. We shouldn't talk about this here, but I know what he's like. And he has to be stopped."

"I agree, but how?" Shepard asked, "As a Spectre he's pretty much untouchable."

"We need to find some way to expose him." Ambassador Udina said thoughtfully, though as far as Shepard was concerned he was merely stating the blatantly obvious.

"So we'll need to find some hard evidence against him?" Shepard added, "Where are we gonna find something like that? We can't exactly afford to sail across the galaxy hoping to run into Saren conniving with the Geth."

"We won't have to." Captain Anderson explained, "The Citadel is the center of all Council aligned space. Politically, Culturally, Socially. If anyone knows anything about Saren chances are that information will find its way here somehow. All you need to do is find someone that might come across that information."

"What about Garrus?" Kaiden spoke up, "That C-Sec investigator. We saw him arguing with the executor."

"That's right." Ashley joined him, "He was asking him for more time, seems like he was close to finding something on Saren."

Shepard thought back briefly to the moment when they first stepped onto the Council chambers from the elevator. They had run into Garrus Vakarian, the C-Sec officer in charge of the official investigation into Saren. It was obvious he didn't like Saren; it was clear from their investigation that C-Sec long suspected Saren of foul play. But being a Spectre, everything Saren did was classified, which meant C-Sec's investigation was unable to come up with any official evidence against him.

That Garrus, however, struck Shepard as one interesting Turian. He was motivated, he was persistent, and he was definitely favored unconventional methods unlike most Turians. He even tried asking his boss, Executor Palin, to stall the Council of all things just for a chance to get the evidence he needed. What Shepard also noticed was that he didn't share the same mentality of most Turians she had met. Not that she was an expert on the species, but she certainly never met one so eager to talk to her, a Human, about someone he considered a common foe, another Turian.

"He might prove useful." Shepard thought out loud. "The Executor's office is next to the embassy we should ask him to get us in contact with Garrus."

"That may not work." Captain Anderson shook his head, "C-Sec policy wouldn't allow him to share information on any investigation involving a Spectre, even if he wanted to. And I can assure you Executor Palin has no intention of going against C-Sec policy. Knowing him that's all the reason he'll need to avoid giving you anything."

"I'm sure I can convince him." Shepard said, her tone clearly indicating she wasn't planning on being too subtle about it.

"No. The last thing I need is you harassing the man in charge of C-Sec." Ambassador Udina told her. "I have a contact in CSec who might help us find Garrus, his name is Harkin."

"Forget it, they suspended Harkin last month, drinking on the job." Captain Anderson's disgust was obvious, "I won't waste my time with that loser."

"You won't have to." Udina told him harshly, "I don't want the Council using your past history with Saren as an excuse to ignore anything we turn up. Shepard will handle this."

"You can't just cut him out." Shepard insisted.

"No he's right." the Captain sighed, "It's best if I step down from this investigation."

"I need to take care of some business, Captain Anderson meet me in my office later." The Ambassador spoke absently, already walking away from the others and heading to his office.

"Harkin's probably getting drunk in Chora's Den." the Captain said almost as an afterthought as he turned to leave, "It's a dingy little dive down in the Wards." He was stopped by Shepard's hand on his arm.

"This is bullshit and you know it." Shepard told him. She let go of his arm as she continued, "Even if you can't help directly with the investigation we present to the Council you should at least be able to assist somehow. Especially if Saren is as dangerous as you say he is."

"He is, all the more reason to focus on what's important." Captain Anderson replied, "And right now that means convincing the Council that he's no longer a Spectre. I can't jeopardize that."

"Fine, so all we can do right now is talk to this Harkin?" Shepard asked.

"Couldn't hurt." Anderson shrugged, "As bad as he is, Harkin's been around for a long time, he's probably heard quite a few rumors, regardless of his suspension. I just wouldn't call his information all that reliable."

"That's not filling me with any confidence." Shepard said, "Maybe there's another way to find evidence against Saren."

"There is, but I'm not sure it'll help much." Anderson said.

"Couldn't be much worse then Harkin, right?" Kaiden suggested.

"Fair enough." Captain Anderson nodded, "You should speak with Barla Von down in the financial district, rumor has it he's an agent for the shadow broker."

"The Shadow Broker?" Ashley asked bluntly.

"An information dealer," Anderson explained, "Buys and sells secrets to the highest bidder. Just think of him as a necessary evil of intergalactic politics."

"Why don't we just go talk to him directly?" Shepard asked.

"You can't, it's impossible." Anderson said shaking his head, "No body ever meets him, or her, or could be they. The point is no one ever sees the Shadow Broker. Even his agents never interact with him directly. Your best bet is to talk to someone like Barla Von. He can get in touch with the Shadow Broker. Even if he doesn't he may have already come across information about Saren. Beyond that, however, he knows as much about the Shadow Broker as anyone else. All that matters is he might know something about Saren, but his information won't come cheap."

"Great," Shepard sighed, "No chance of expensing the cost of that intel to Requisitions I'm guessing."

"Unfortunately not," the Captain shook his head, "Try to see what you can find out, I'll be at the Ambassador's office if you need anything."

* * *

**_A/N:_ **A short one really quick. Unfortunately I've been suffering from a bit of writers block - in the form of a massive workload at my job - so I havn't been able to finish chapters as fast as I'd like. Hope I can get the creative juices flowing better soon.


End file.
